 And you're very welcome back, and that was the sound of Keela there, and Lachineye, a hocked, which if my Irish serves me correctly means half past eight, but indeed it's just gone half past seven. And on the line with me now is Shonan Brennan, a member of Keela, healing from Ross Naila in County Donegal, described as a prolific musician, composer, and recording artist, has toured the world several times over with various legends of Irish music, and he's joining me on the phone now. Shonan, you're very welcome. Thank you for taking time out. So, thanks for having me on, Jean. Thank you very much. So, I haven't heard that tune for a long time. Well, there you go. Taking you down memory lane there. Taking me back. The first time I heard of Keela a long time ago, I was involved with the Letter County Folk Festival back in the late 80s, early 90s, and they performed at the Letter County Folk Festival back in 1991. So, I presume that you weren't in the group at that stage? No. No, I'm a relative newcomer. I'm in the group about 15 years now. So, but the last all met at school, so they're, I think it's maybe 34 years, 35 years, something like that. They're still going, or they're going all that time. So, you're involved now with this production that's in the green on the 8th of May. Catherine Young's a call to you. So, is this a new departure for you and the band doing something like that? Yeah. So, in the band now with this, there's just myself and Brian Hogan. He is the bass player in Keela. So, it's just the two of us from Keela. And so, it's a five piece band, and then there are eight dancers on stage. It's a beautiful contemporary dance. It's sort of inspired by Ukrainian folk music and Ukrainian dance. And international cast. It's absolutely beautiful if you get a chance to come along and see it. So, we have, we have an amazing cellist from Australia called Ilsa Desire, fabulous name. And then Jeff Cabinus in the bass. I'm playing electric guitar and the soupy. And you might even ask, oh, Martin. Martin is the musical director, and he is a percussionist. So, basically, it sort of starts off, and what's really beautiful about it actually is that as soon as you walk into the theatre, it's already happening. All the dancers, not quite all the dancers, but five of the dancers are on stage, six of the dancers are on stage, and while we're seating in the audience. And so, the first part you could say, now, there's no interval around it, and the whole thing just runs through. But the first part is this lovely sort of airy, kind of real slow-paced, kind of menacing almost music. And they move around, and it's sort of, there's a lot of hostility, and everybody's very isolated or something. And it's kind of hard to describe what's going on, but because it's so beautiful to look at them. And, go on ahead, sorry for interrupting you. No, it's all in that part. The first part really is just, it kind of sets up this, you know, it's sort of talking about how isolated people were and have become over the past couple of years and what's going on in Ukraine now. There's just these outrages and, you know, how you could sort of internalize all that. And just, you know, it's quite angry, actually, the first part of this. And I suppose it's hard to express your emotions through dance. Do the audience get a preview of what the dance is about? Or is it left up to them to interpret themselves what the dance is about? I'd say it's up to the individual as they're watching it. You know, it's just so beautiful to watch it. And I just love the first part of some menacing or something. But this is really just what I've seen. We've been rehearsing this for two weeks in Longford, so I have been watching it a lot. And I have no real experience of working with dancers or, say to my Irish dancers, maybe we've done things over the years with that. But I have never seen or been involved with anything like this, you know. So, and it's funny when we're rehearsing, there are all these words going around and I'm not sure that that's what, you know, that that's what I'm getting out of it or that's what I see in this. You know, you can just pull your own path, will it really? As far as I can see. And the band is on stage the whole time too. What's the dancer's, am I right in saying that? Yeah, yeah. Well, we're side of the stage, but as far as I know, you can see is it's kind of like the river dance set up, you know, the way you could always see the musicians. But I guarantee you once you're in there, you're not really be looking at us. We're just sort of sitting there and we're wearing black and just doing our thing. And I suppose it's good for everybody. It's great that we can actually see them. I wouldn't like to be playing down below or something like that or in behind them, you know, it's great to be able to see what's going on. So, you know, we can respond to one another and just keep it nice and that we're all on the same page. We're all nice and tight about it, you know. And, uh, well, everybody, I would say in this part of the world and further field of Raw as well have heard of Kayla. But Catherine Young, a new name to me, but her work is very popular and she's quite famous as, uh, does she make up the dances herself? Yeah, she's the choreographer and Catherine is amazing. She's, she's a beautifully engaged artist and she always has something really strong, like really, really powerful pieces. She's just incredible. She's incredible. She's based down in Antiquari, but originally from Dublin, but very gifted choreographer and, you know, she's traveled. She's been in Palestine. She's been in all sorts of places that is just very, very important stuff, you know. There's nothing through where it's not very light. And you know what I mean? You were saying that the Ukrainian folk dancing was part of the inspiration. Have you had many Ukrainians in the audience on your tour so far, Sean? We have indeed, yes. It was so last night, we were in Chimsechera in Triliy and Kerry. So I just got back to us now about 20 minutes ago and I'm not sure was there about maybe 40 Ukrainians were invited along and we got a beautiful email from, from one of them. So, so in the second half of it, it sort of picks up then and slowly picks up temple and now I wouldn't say it's exactly traditional Ukrainian dance, but it's inspired by the shapes of it, you know, and there's these beautiful circles and every second dancer was in and just really, really lively stuff. And then as a band, then the piece that we play, it's kind of a four-part, kind of a reel almost, but it's inspired. It's not just exactly Ukrainian folk melody, but it's inspired by one, you know. And so the whole thing picks up then. It's sort of, you know, from, from the sort of the division of the first part of the show, the dancers seem to kind of unite or they're kind of trying to help one another and support one another. And then the energy builds up and the whole thing, kind of the temple picks up. And I love it. Just the second half then it just ramps away on up and just a, just a lovely crescendo then at the end. It's just really, really enjoyable. I would presume that... And that's the Ukrainian part. I would presume that the Ukrainians, it would be quite emotional seeing their different dances. Yeah. We in Longford on the 22nd, I think it was, well, just two years ago, there were about 80 Ukrainians giving up the show and there were people in the front row crying. Which is pretty, you know, the one woman was a journalist, but she hadn't, but they learned all these dances when they were small children. And she hasn't seen them or thought about them since, you know, so perhaps it's not something that's done widely, you know, it's not done widely in Ukraine. But she remembers, it'd be just like going to see a 200 or something like that after 30 years, you know. So we must be doing it kind of right. We've quite a number of Afie-Ukranians here in Letter County, so I would presume that some of them will be going down to see the show on the 8th. So you're on tour, you were in Longford, you said, and you're in Cork tonight, I think Kate told me. Am I right in saying that? No, we were in Kerry last night. Oh, Kerry, ah, right. Kerry in Sheemsettia, what a beautiful theatre. And we had a great house there, it was great fun. So we were two weeks actually in Longford just putting it all together. So we did this for the Dublin Dance Festival this time last year, or just slightly earlier in the year. And basically we just, everybody wanted to do it again. And we got, you know, we got organized to get and do it again. So we have, I think it's like a seven then new tour. So there was a night after the rehearsals, a night in Longford, then we were in the pavilion in Dunleary. And then last night in Kerry. So tomorrow we're going down to Gaul, if we're just to set up the rehearsal, you know, there's lots of lights and all that kind of stuff. And so Tuesday night, the second, we're in the Town Hall Theatre in Gaulay. Then on Thursday, we're going over to Port Leish, to the Dona Mays Art Centre, and then Monday the eighth, to Greenham and Dona Gaul. Then the following Thursday, we're going down to Limerick, to the Lime Tree, and then we're finishing up on the 13th in Glowar in Ennis. Fantastic. So busy times for you. And it's 16 minutes. Yeah, it's great though, it's great. And as you said, it would be marvellous now if a load of our visitors from Ukraine could come along to on Tuesday or on Monday, rather, to the Greenham. It would be just great if we could see them all there. You know, it'd be lovely. I'm sure you'll enjoy it. 16 minutes with no interval. I'm sure it must be very exhausting for well, musicians and dancers alike and a lot of energy at the same one stage. Certainly for the dancers, you know, they're soaking when they come up. Even like the first part, you know, you think that there's not much movement or it's, but it's just so tense and, you know, and then the second the crescendo, they're just, it gets lovely and exciting and wild, you know. So, yeah. Now for us as musicians, it's great. We're sitting there, everything's lovely and comfortable, and we've two great sound guys out. So Alan looks after all the sound for us and Michael and everything's lovely and handy. And I mean, you know, we're most of us in the band. In fact, all of us, we've been gigging for years, and this is kind of a different experience. You know, it's not, you're not really moving around. You're just sort of, in fact, that's one of the hard parts about it. It's just staying in one position, you know, because it gets so exciting at the end and you'd love to just start rapping with them, you know. Well, I said, I've read some of the reviews on Line about it, and everybody that went to it was raving about it. So I'm looking forward to seeing it myself, Shonan, on the eight o'clock start as usual. Grace, Grace, and thank you. Lovely to see you all there. And thank you so much for taking time out of your very busy schedule to talk to right here on Hydent. Thank you very much, Jean. Thanks for having me on. Take care. All the best, all the best. Bye-bye.