ANU productions and the performance of otherness

Taking my lead from Ric Knowles’s analysis of interculturalism 'from below’ (Knowles, 2017, 2), the focus this essay is on representation ‘otherness’ in three productions Ireland’s multi-award-winning company ANU Productions: their 2014 play Vardo about ‘travellers’ an inner-city community; 2016 Sunder, which contemporary Chinese characters were placed a centenary production failed revolution; and 2019 production, Faultline, where previously unknown Black British singer emerges Irish Queer Archive. Productions’ intercultural strategy contests monocultural constructions Ireland, by throwing spectators, without exposition, into often historical scenes featuring other worlds, nations, races ethnicities. These characters, very visual aural presence performances ostensibly experiences, refract at times challenge essentialist tendencies to write histories nation. ANU’s has always been ‘others’, bystanders history, those absent constructions. But folding present performed past, calls ‘NOW THEN NOW’, new ‘others’ emerge as bystanders, inviting us stand them well.