Hello Everyone,

Greetings and good wishes for a happy, healthy and peaceful New Year.

Thank you so much for your generous contributions to my fundraiser last summer for Doctors WIthout Borders. Together we raised over $5000. The fundraising ended yesterday and I will now ask Doctors Without Borders to distribute the funds where they are most needed. I will update you within the next couple of months where, and how, your contributions have been utilized. 

All good wishes and love.

Philip

Slemish Mountain, Northern Ireland. December 27, 2009.

Hello Everyone,

It has been a while since my last Blog. I have covered much ground (600 miles) and have completed my fundraising performance/cycling trip around Ireland for Doctors Without Borders. 

After the performance in Galway I cycled north to Sligo, through Tuam and Charlestown. I cycled past the Plains of Mayo and Claremorris. Sligo was preparing for the 50th Anniversary of the Yeats Festival and I danced there in front of my favorite sweater shop in the town center. 

From Sligo I saw the changing topography around Benbulbin, can one ever take too many photos of this great precipice? The view across Donegal Bay to the Blue Stack Mountains is one of the most stunning in Ireland. From Donegal it was a slow, hard cycle up the valley through the mountains. I cycled through Letterkenny and downhill from there into Derry. Echo Echo, the professional dance company in Derry was on summer vacation so I did not have the expected performance with them. I have planned to return in August, after their vacation, to dance with the dancers in Derry.
 
The journey back to Belfast was through Limavady, Coleraine, Ballymoney, southward to Antrim and the arrival at my father's home after a 70 mile ride from Derry.

In Belfast there were wonderful performances, with six dancers, in the center of the city and at a world-renowned rose garden at Lady Dixon Park. Nicola Curry, the artistic director of Maiden Voyage Dance Company, based at the Dance Resource Space in Belfast, organized the Belfast performances with the professional dancers. I taught an evening workshop at the Dance Resource Studio and was inspired to work with the dancers: Sheena Kelly, Oona Doherty, Eileen McCory, Anthea McWilliams, Jennifer Thornton and Nicola. We had a great audience at Corn Market in Belfast including several friends from the US (Sam and Joan McCready, Jane Blake) and others from Belfast (Peter Quigley, Ann Marie Mullan, Bernadette Mooney) and many others. They were our "rent a crowd" and helped to take video and photographs of the performance. A lovely Romanian accordionist also joined us and a couple of young members of the public danced freely with us.

At the Rose Gardens Ursula Burn accompanied us, she is well-known songwriter and harpist in Ireland. We arrived at Lady Dixon Park just after a summer, tropical, deluge and danced barefoot on the sodden grass. We wandered off into the Rose Garden intoxicated by the scent of the roses before a few final tunes from Ursula. One audience member commented: "This is how I want it to be when I leave this earth; dancers, a harp and roses"!! We had it all at Lady Dixon's.

My sister Helene organized a fundraising coffee morning for me at her home. I enjoyed meeting her many dancing friends who contributed very generously to Doctors Without Borders. The craic on Saturday afternoon was joyous. 

Thank you for all of your very generous contributions to my Dance for Darfur fundraiser in Ireland, the fund has now reached $3500 and continues to grow.  I have had many extraordinary experiences this summer and have been overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity from family, friends and complete strangers. I also feel more connected to the entire island of Ireland having seen it in microcosm. The new road infrastructure makes crossing the country possible in only a few hours and see very little. If you haven't already done so, travel around part of Ireland by bicycle, you will not be disappointed.  

I would not have the space to list all of the people who helped me before and during this fundraising project. I have included them in a thank you page on my website. I will just mention my father who is a constant source of inspiration and who fully equipped my bicycle for the trip.

The fundraising site will remain open until the end of September when I will present the funds raised to Doctors Without Borders to assist their humanitarian work. 

All good wishes, love and chi,

Philip

Hello Everyone,

It has been a while since the last blog---the daily blog is not so easy to fulfill. I am either on the road, dancing or revelling in the landscape. E-mail and cell phone access is not always possible.

HOWEVER . . . my journey goes on splendidly and much to report, but in brief, just a couple of highlights from the past days:

In Limerick I met with four dancers based at Daghda---they are artists in residence for one year. Daghda Dance Company is housed in a coverted church in the center of Limerick and is one of them most inspiring dance spaces I have been in for many years---hopefully you can see the photos. I spent several hours with the dancers, dancing and catching up with the work they have been engaged in Ireland, Berlin, London and Finland---thank you Sheena, Lucy, Sonja and Diane for the wonderful dance we shared together---your spurred me on to Galway.

I took a detour en-route to Galway via the Cliffs of Moher/the Aran Islands and a lovely village, Doolin, with a great (all singing) Irish pub. I have always wanted to visit the Aran Islands since reading Synge's great plays. I cycled across Inishmore to Dun Aonghasa, one of the great fortressed wonders in  Europe, begun 500BC and perched on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean. The Islands are bleak but in the misty light, utterly beautiful. Irish is also spoken on the islands and I found myself listening, where possible, to the cadences of the language, it sings.

In Galway I performed with three great dancers last evening in the main street: Tanya McCrory, Cristina Goletti and Nick Bryson. We danced with guitarist Ciaran Chadwick and gathered a large audience and many passers-by.  There are many tourists in Galway from across the globe and some of them joined in our Dance for Darfur until after 11:00p.m. Galway has a great energy and within the next couple of weeks will be hosting a major arts festival---I might drive back down later in July to savor some of the dance and theatre performances from Shakespeare to Micheal Clark.

I have been continuing to meet many wonderful people---other adventurers from across the planet, all marveling at how stunning Ireland is. On the boat crossing yesterday (the boat was called the "Happy Hooker"!!) I talked with a priest, who spends part of his year in the US.We joked about the name of the boat and the fact that it is never on time---he said, "because it is always having a good time in Doolin"!. He, like many others, commented on my t-shirt "Dance for Darfur|" and immediately offered me 50Euros. I told him I didn't accept cash but he could go to my website: www.philip-johnston.net,  where he would be directed to my fundraising page for Doctors Without Borders.

Thank you for your continuing contributions---the fund continues to grow.

It is a lovely morning in Galway---slightly misty across Galway Bay to the Burren. I'll spend the early afternoon here and then begin the journey north toward Sligo.

I am somewhat out of touch with world events at moment with just occasional glances at the NYT. I did see yesterday that Pina Bausch died in Germany. We talked about her over dinner last evening and her extraordinary contributions to dance across the globe---she will be very sadly missed.

I hope you are all continuing to have great summers. For those of you in the US have a joyous 4th of July!!!

Love and chi,

Philip

Hello everyone,

My father waved me off from his home yesterday morning (June 22). He fully equipped the bicycle for me last week: panniers, lock, helmet, lights, weather shoes and more. After last minute tire pressure and brake checks I cycled into Belfast where I stopped to see Helen Lewis, my dance teacher when I lived in Belfast, she was 93 yesterday.

I cycled from Belfast to Dublin, a distance of 100 miles. It was a perfect day, 72 degrees (US) 21 degrees(UK). The bicycle was sturdy but takes getting used to with weight on the back---the computer is the heaviest thing I am carrying. Seeing the landscape change and the smell of the countryside is joyous. As cars speed past my leisurely pace allows the world to pass by slowly and I experience everything in detail. I had my first glimpse of the Irish sea at Ballbriggen and a long strip of sandy beach.

In Drogheda I performed with dance students from a local studio. We performed together in front of Drogheda Cathederal, on one of the main shopping streets. Passers-by stopped and watched our performance and a local photographer snapped shots.

Tracy Martin, the director of the local dance company showed me around her very lovely studios downtown Drogheda, she has over 800 students taking classes from modern to hip-hop and everything else in between---oh yes---and Irish.

I arrived into Dublin late last evening and was thrilled to be cycling down O'Connell Street and over the Liffy. Dublin was glowing in the late summer sun. I am staying with my very dear friend Seamus Crimmins who cooked a wonderful dinner for me last evening.

My body felt fine this morning--I was a little tentative after such a long journey yesterday but all is well.

Off to the Dance House this afternoon and a meeting with Doctors Without Borders afterwards. The Dublin performances will take place tomorrow in a variety of locations.

It is a mediterranean day in  Ireland today.

The fundraising is going well, you can visit my fundraising page on my website: www.philip-johnston.net

All good wishes and love,

Philip

I am having a problem sending photos but this should be rectified this evening with the help of a Blog expert!

 

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As you know, there is a humanitarian crisis in Darfur, Sudan. I will be fundraising on behalf of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières—MSF) this summer in Ireland from June 25 to July 25. This fundraiser, Dance For Darfur, will take me to thirty towns in Ireland and include Dublin and Belfast. I will be performing improvised dances with local musicians and dancers in each of the places I visit. The Arts Council of Ireland and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland are assisting me in contacting local musicians and dancers. This journey around Ireland will be on bicycle and average 25-30 miles each day. The funds will be raised in the United States and Ireland and will be distributed by MSF to support their humanitarian work in Sudan.

I will post a daily blog of my journey and performances to those who have made contributions to Dance for Darfur. BBC television will also cover part of my journey around Ireland and there will be information about Dance For Darfur in the local press.

The towns and cities where I will perform include: Newry, Dundalk, Drogheda, Dublin, Wicklow, Enniscorthy, Waterford, Youghal, Cork, Killarney, Torbert, Ennis, Galway, Ballinrobe, Balina, Sligo, Donegal Town, Letterkenny, Derry, Coleraine, Ballymena, Antrim and Belfast.

Stay posted