‘Circles of Women’: Feminist Movements in the Choreography of Oona Doherty

Abstract

The focus of this article is the range of feminisms which circulate through Belfast-based Oona Doherty's choreographies for groups of women, namely the second episode of Hard to Be Soft: A Belfast Prayer (2017), which is titled ‘Sugar Army', and Lady Magma: The Birth of a Cult (2019). This analysis is motivated by the need to expand discussion of feminisms in tandem with examination of more complex identities in Northern Ireland: to look beyond a Nationalist–Unionist binary within post-conflict society and examine the intersections of gender, class and race. Tracking the movement of feminisms through Doherty's choreographies will explore how they mobilize, and fail, these women, as well as revealing the potential for, and pitfalls of, community and solidarity. Doherty's work has the potential to mobilize a dynamic intergenerational and intersectional feminism which recognizes the experiences of ‘differently positioned women’.