What is your idea of perfect happiness?
M: Laughter and peace of mind.
C: Absolutely uncontrollable laughter.
Which historical figure do you most identify with?
M: Guerrilla Girls.
C: Henry A Wallace maybe?
Which living person do you most admire?
M: Malala Yousafzai.
C: Anne Bogart.
Which is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
M: Attention Deficit Disorder.
C: Overthinking.
What is your greatest extravagance?
M: Too many unmatched socks
C: Lego.
What is your favourite journey?
M: To Achill Island
C: The view from the DART as it exits the tunnel between Dalkey and Killiney stations showing the bay all the way to Wicklow.
On what occasion do you lie?
M: Chatting to my daughter about Santa…
C: Questionnaires.
Which living person do you most despise?
M: Donald Trump.
C: Rupert Murdoch.
What or who is the greatest love of your life?
M: DANCE.
C: Theatre.
When and where were you happiest?
M: On stage, on a rehearsal, after a performance.
C: Before all of THIS [gestures wildly at the surrounding pandemic.]
Which talent would you most like to have?
M: Read music and play an instrument.
C: I’d love to be really, properly musically talented.
What is your current state of mind?
M: Turbulent.
C: Pandemic brainfog.
What do you consider your greatest achievement?
M: To have a dance career.
C: Getting audiences to laugh with surprise and delight.
If you were to die and come back as a person or a thing, what do you think it would be?
M: The Tooth Fairy
C: A blue whale maybe? Something way outside human scale.
What is your most treasured possession?
M: Some old photographs from my family
C: My old hand-developed photo negatives.
What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
M: The year 2020 wasn’t exactly a walk in the park…
C: Loneliness.
What is your favourite occupation?
M: Reading is a bliss.
C: Making things.
What is the quality you most like in a man?
M: Passion and commitment.
C: Honesty.
What is the quality you most like in a woman?
M: Passion and commitment.
C: Also honesty.
Who are your favourite writers?
M: Delphine de Vigan, Elena Ferrante, Zeruya Shalev.
C: Beckett is the bracingly cold and clear stream I keep returning to.
What is your motto?
M: Dance, dance, otherwise we are lost!
C “The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery” (Francis Bacon ).
Monica Munoz is a dance artist based in Dublin. Under the company name Game Theory, writer/director Cathal McGuire makes shows for all ages. They are both participants of the GROW Pathway to Production programme led by Baboro International Arts Festival for Children.
