WE MET ON A DANCE FLOOR
By Inua Ellams
Directed by Colm Summers
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Abbey Theatre, National Theatre of Ireland
Reel Mix / 05Fest
Peacock Stage · Dublin
2022
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Featuring Clinton Liberty and Sean Doyle
CAST
SPEAKER
Clinton Liberty
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MAN
Sean DoyleÂ
ABOUT
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We Met on a Dance Floor was my first film, commissioned by the Abbey Theatre, the National Theatre of Ireland, as part of Reel Mix.
The project invited a group of directors to make short films from the same text by poet and playwright Inua Ellams, creating an anthology of radically different interpretations.
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My film focused on the rapid gentrification of Dublin, male intimacy and dance on film. At its center are two men — Speaker and Man — and an encounter shaped through bodies, movement and the changing city around them.
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The completed film premiered at the Abbey Theatre as part of 05Fest, curated by Inua Ellams, in July 2022.Â
REEL MIX
Reel Mix was conceived as an exercise in creative interpretation: multiple directors responding independently to the same piece of writing by Inua Ellams.
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For me, the commission offered an opportunity to move from stage directing into filmmaking while continuing questions that run through my theater work: how bodies tell stories, how environments shape relationships, and how intimacy can make larger political and social changes visible.
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The film became particularly interested in Dublin as a city being remade.
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Against that changing landscape, dance offered another language for two men to encounter one another.
INUA ELLAMS
Inua Ellams is a Nigerian-born poet, playwright and performer whose work moves between poetry, theater, spoken word and visual art.
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His plays include Barber Shop Chronicles, The Half-God of Rainfall, Three Sisters and An Evening with an Immigrant.