Dualtagh McDonnell-Grundy is a theatre-maker and writer from Dublin working between both Ireland and the Netherlands. He is primarily interested in collaborative and physical performance which draws on the everyday experience and the surreal. His practice is focused on the creation of alternative worlds which invite the public to question and reflect on the structures/systems that are in place in everyday spaces. He trained as a devised director at Trinity College, Dublin and is currently conducting practice-as-research at the Home of Performance Practice in ArtEZ, Netherlands.
He is a co-founding member of BLOB collective (NL) with Biyi Zhu and Sophie Waller. BLOB’s primary focus is exploring the intersection of the body and technology. Through the fabrication of different technologically bound spaces they aim to examine the physical encounter between these two entities, investigating the consequences of this relationship in terms of both the possibilities and limitations it can offer the body. They have currently developed body capture technologies to reflect on the individual’s experience of an increasingly mediated world. They presented their debut work, ‘UnderConstruction’, in DeSingel Arts Centre, Antwerp (September, 2024) and performed a continuation of this work in 4bid Gallery, Amsterdam (December, 2024).
He is currently working on a project titled Still, it moves, which aims to investigate how we articulate meaning from the world around by processing the information we encounter through acts of translation and transformation. The current focus of this project relates to the relationship of information exchange between AI and humans. Presentations of this project have recently been shown in both the Netherlands and Switzerland.
He is a published writer with work featuring in journals and magazines such as Jelly Bucket Magazine, High Shelf Press, Icarus Magazine and Hot Press. He also works in the theatre scene as a performer with recent credits including Bros (dir. Romeo Castellucci) as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2022. Outside of the world of theatre, he works as an English language teacher.
Funding/Residencies and Further Training:
Agility Award Recipient 2024 - funding from Arts Council Ireland for the development of ‘Still, It Moves’ project
Resident Artist at Theatre in Palm Residency (Creative Europe) - Sofia, Bulgaria (October-November 2024)
Participant Artist in RAIVE Summer School (The Algorithmic Gaze and CREATIE) at Royal Conservatory Antwerp/DE SINGEL International Arts Centre (September 2024)
Resident Artist at Labor Europa Performance Residency - Osnabrück, Germany (June 2023)
Aesthetic Transformation Processes Participant (Facilitated by Margit Shild, Elivira Hufschmid) – Berlin Summer University, Universität der Künste Berlin (June 2023)