The Movement of Violence, N.I. is an anthemic love letter to Northern Ireland. An experimental dance documentary investigating how violence lingers in the body, how memory shapes gesture, and how dance becomes an act of release, resilience, and restitution.

Visual artist Deirdre Lewis and choreographer Oona Doherty collaborate on a visceral exploration of life growing up in Northern Ireland, blending shared memories of urban unrest and rural beauty through movement, dance, photography and film. A heaving rave, a bonfire blazes, a murmuration of bodies in sync. Two women throb violently atop a Bronze Age fort. A Black figure glides across an open hillside. Drummers march; hard shoes strike the floor. [*Irish*] dancers move in formation. This raw and layered portrait of identity, tension, and release will emerge as a short film and immersive multimedia installation. Expressing the lived experiences of a generation who grew up in Northern Ireland marked by the long shadow of sectarian violence, military occupation and colonial brutality. The ‘post-Good Friday Agreement generation’ who experienced the profound and performative efforts of reconciliation and cross-community gatherings, alongside tension, division and violence from the ongoing Troubles. The absurdity of sectarian pageantry, the everyday tension of growing up in a colonized place, the monumental presence of Ireland’s rural and coastal landscapes. The electrifying energy of rave culture as a site of resistance, relief and cross-community gathering.

Ultimately, The Movement of Violence, N.I. is both personal testimony and collective portrait. It is a film about the resilience of a people and the capacity of art to transmute trauma into beauty. By fusing movement, dance, costume, and music, we aim to create not just a document of Northern Ireland’s past, but an anthem of survival.


Produced by Paradise


email: contact@themovementofviolence.com