Fingerprints premiere at The MAC, Belfast

March 2026

Documentation of Fingerprints at The MAC, Belfast — Friday 13 March 2026. Video copyright Chris McCann Videography.

As the audience came in, the projection was already alive but quiet. The small sounds of people settling into their seats, feet shuffling and chairs scraping, were enough to stir the image. Some people noticed straight away. Others only gradually realised the wall was listening.

Then the screen went black. A lone trombone sounded from off-stage, and the ensemble slowly came into the room as the visuals came back to life. From there it was improvised: music, projection and performers moving through the space, with the audience in the middle of it all.

By the end the performers had gradually left again. A solo violin carried the last stretch, and the projection wound down with it until only the drawing was left on the wall.

At the same time, in the bright space outside the theatre, visual artist Heidi Nguyen improvised with pairs of musicians, painting and drawing as they played.

Fingerprints at The MAC took place in two spaces: free pop-up performances in The Crush, and the full performances in the theatre upstairs.

There’s more about the background and the people involved in Fingerprints at The MAC, Belfast.

Matinee performance from Fingerprints at The MAC, Belfast — the first public performance.

Second performance from Fingerprints at The MAC, Belfast — the evening performance later the same day.

Ensemble

The ensemble at The MAC:

Ioana Petcu-Colan — violin
Steve Meyfroidt — live visuals
Lina Andonovska — flute
Ross Lyness — trombone
Alex Petcu — percussion
Amy Prendergast — movement and performance
Heidi Nguyen — live painting and drawing in The Crush

Audience response

Some of the things people said afterwards:

“I didn’t know what to expect but I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing”

“Brilliant! Loved that!”

“I started facing the screen but after a couple of minutes I had to move my chair to see all the other things that were also going on.”

“Where are you doing another performance?”

The performance happened all around the audience, and people’s attention moved with it: the screen, then the players, then the movement around them, then the room as a whole.