'Éacht Loch nEathach - Lough Neagh Lament' : Performance and Panel Discussion

'Éacht Loch nEathach - Lough Neagh Lament' is an immersive audiovisual piece that documents HIVE Choir's site-specific performance at Lough Neagh, the largest lake in the British Isles and a site of recent ecological controversy.

The lake, once a source of cleansing and renewal in Celtic mythology, is now in need of intervention.  Decades of industrialisation have led to toxic pollutants spreading across and below the surface.  

HIVE Choir lament the lough, performing cleansing rituals and improvised songs that draw on traditional Irish melodies, folklore and pagan practices. Their actions and voices are dispersed around the immersive screen and spatial audio soundscape mixed with natural soundscapes in a hallucinatory mediation of the lake's past, present and future. HIVE Choir is an experimental vocal ensemble based at the Sonic Arts Research Centre in Belfast. 

HIVE creates new music from found texts, traditional songs and improvisation. Formed in 2017, the group come from a variety of musical backgrounds (Irish traditional, pop, experimental), dancers, writers and researchers. Under the direction of John D'Arcy, the group collectively compose and improvise with verbal notation and audio technologies, inviting participation from non-expert performers and audience members. 

The performance will be followed by a panel discussion titled, 'Lough Neagh - what to do?'