Miguel Mera’s Morriña to receive first performances

Dr Miguel Mera has devised and developed a new audiovisual dance piece for which he has composed the music. It will receive it first performances on the 10th and 11th July at the Laban Theatre. Working with choreographer Tony Thatcher, filmmaker Bruno Mathez and a company of 24 dancers, the piece explores notions of  identity as seen through the lens of the diasporic Galician-British community. Galicia is a rural region in the North West of Spain that depends economically on fishing and agriculture. The word morriña has no direct English equivalent but can be described as the despondency caused by the nostalgic longing for one’s lost homeland. The word is intimately linked to large numbers of Galicians who were driven by poverty or lack of opportunity to migrate in successive waves from the mid-19th century onwards.