SOLDIERS STILL

Directors: Megan and Jessica Kennedy;
Artistic Directors of Junk Ensemble;
Set Design: Sabine Dargent;
Lighting Design: Sarah Jane Shiels;
Composition: Denis Clohessy;
Costume Design: Sarah Foley;
Dramaturg: Gary Keegan.
Soldier Still won the Best Design Award at Dublin Fringe Festival 2017.

The show, *Soldiers Still*, was inspired by interviews with current and former soldiers about the trauma of violence. Junk Ensemble’s directors, Megan and Jessica, crafted a visceral visual poem using dance, music, and a unique visual vocabulary. The set was pure white. A protective white wall continually rejected three liquid bright colors. Once mixed by the dancers’ movements, these colors became dirt, leaving traces and marks.

«On my last night in Lebanon, I burned my dirty combats in a barrel with some diesel and burned all of the letters my mother had sent me from Ireland, along with all of the St. Christopher medals and little laminated prayers. The violence I witnessed changed me. I never came back. Soldier Still is a journey through dance, movement, and sound into the heart of darkness that is conflict, trauma, truth, and identity.»
—Dr. Tom Clonan, former captain in the Irish Defence Forces and performer in *Soldiers Still* (The Journal.ie).