Dublin Dance Festival is the leading dance event on the Irish Arts calendar. Each year in May, the festival brings together dance artists and choreographers from across the world to share vibrant contemporary dance with audiences in Ireland. The festival will be taking place 18th-28th May.
Heres a guide on what to expect:
Concert-Colin Dunne
Leading traditional Irish dance artist Colin Dunne opens the Festival with his highly-anticipated new solo show. In Concert, he confronts the music of virtuoso traditional Irish fiddle player Tommie Potts (1912-1988). Potts’ iconic 1972 album The Liffey Banks is the only recording of his music commercially released in his lifetime. Although renowned for its delicate, melancholic and playful qualities, it is widely considered to be unsuitable for dancing to.
Dates: 18th – 20th May
Time: 8pm
Price: €25
Sunny
Experience a joyful collision of music and movement! Merging a live concert with gorgeous dance, Sunny is an explosion of ideas, new sounds and exuberant energy. Created by acclaimed choreographer Emanuel Gat and DJ, singer and performer Awir Leon, this uplifting piece is a blast of pleasures, rich in changing moods and colours.
Dates: 22nd-23rd May
Time: 7.30pm
Price: €22-38
Deep Dish
Deep Dish is a stunning spectacle. Four performers take their seats at a table set for a feast of Baroque opulence. As this bizarre dinner party unfolds we encounter the beauty and decadence of human existence, destined to perish.
Dates: 26th-27th May
Time: 7.30pm
Price: €22-38
Global Group: Dance!
Dublin Dance Festival is inviting everyone to dance one the most famous dance sequences ever created by iconic German choreographer Pina Bausch: the “Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter” line from her 1982 piece NELKEN, as part of a global project by the Pina Bausch Foundation and ARTE, the European culture channel.
Dates: Jan-May
Price: Free
Elvedon
Upon birth, life is set into motion. We become part of a world of constant change, as infinite as time and as unstoppable as the ocean. Inspired by Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves, the concept of eternal flow is at the core of Elvedon by Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos.
Dates: 19th-20th May
Time: 7.30pm
Price: €22
At Home Alone
Using unique video interactions, this multimedia dance show encourages young audiences to discover fun new ways to get creative with technology. Like a hall of mirrors, two dancers use a computer on stage to distort their own images on a big screen, playfully expanding and contracting the space and their bodies in a surprising visual game. Children can give it a try themselves during a period of guided interactive play at the end.
Dates: 19th-20th May
Time: N/A
Price: €12
Moveable Feast
It’s the start of summer but we’re celebrating all the seasons at this year’s Moveable Feast. Pack a picnic and gather family and friends for an afternoon of fun dance experiences for all ages in Merrion Square park.
Dates: 20th May
Time: 12pm – 3pm
Price: Free
Hip – Hop Dance Battle
Join Hip-Hop innovator Tobi Omoteso and the Top 8 Team for Volume 3 of their hugely popular annual dance battle. Dancers from across Ireland and the world will showcase their best moves to represent themselves, their crew and their country in this epic dance event with live DJs KhanFu (UK) and Dmitri (Latvia).
Dates: 21st May
Time: 7pm
Price: €10
Merry.Go.Round
In her new piece Maria Nilsson Waller looks beyond our world into the great, vast blackness of the cosmos in order to examine our most human of concerns: the search for true love. In this otherworldly realm of celestial bodies five characters orbit each other. Some are destined to converge, others to split apart. All long for authentic connections in a world where every man is an island.
Dates: 23rd-24th May
Times: 7.30pm
Price: €22
Singspiele
Using simple props, actor David Mambouch skilfully creates a moving gallery of portraits in this intriguing, austere performance. His own identity is concealed behind a succession of printed images of faces – some are familiar, others are not. Adopting and shedding personas as often as his costumes, he switches from one identity to another, expertly adjusting his gestures and posture to each. Male and female, old and young, celebrities and strangers: his precisely timed movements describe his characters without uttering a single word.
Dates: 24th-25th May
Times: 8pm
Price: €25
Displacement
In Displacement, Syrian dancer and choreographer Mithkal Alzghair examines the body in the context of war, migration and revolution. Drawing from traditional Syrian folk dances, he offers a striking reflection on the experience of fleeing and the uncertainty of life in exile.
Dates: 26th-27th May
Times: 2pm-6pm
Price: €20
Extraterrestrial Events
The truth is out there… or is it? In a spectacular new dance piece, that’s also an opera, Philip Connaughton sets out to uncover Extraterrestrial Events. From the team behind the award-winning Tardigrade, Connaughton is joined by four incredible dancers, composer Michael Gallen and world-renowned soprano Kim Sheehan.
Dates: 27th-28th May
Times: 7.30pm
Price: €22
Striptease
Tongue firmly in cheek, Spanish choreographer Pere Faura gets intimate with his audience in this mischievous show about the theatrical art of undressing. What do you think you’ll see at a show called Striptease? Part performance, part lecture, Faura plays with our expectations and perceptions in this witty and provocative exposé of the mechanisms of desire and seduction. Cleverly mixing dance, theatre and video elements he delves into the relationship between the performer and the spectator, with the help of a star turn by Demi Moore.
Dates: 27th-28th May
Times: 9pm
Price: €22
First Looks
A programme of new Irish work-in-development, First Looks is a showcase initiative of Culture Ireland, Dance Ireland and Dublin Dance Festival. It is a key part of the Originate programme and the primary platform for Irish choreographers to introduce new work to Irish and international presenters and audiences. Over the years, many of these works have gone on to be produced as full length pieces at the Dublin Dance Festival and have toured successfully both at home and abroad.
Dates: 19th, 20th, 26th, 27th May
Times: 12pm
Price: €10
The Ferryman
The Ferryman is a cinematic and choreographic exploration of the animistic roots of rituals, dance and sculpture. Through the journey of a half-deer, half-hunter character, the film is a metaphoric and visceral six-step ascent of a mountain, considered here a place of birth and death. Filmed in the stunning landscapes of Bali, Japan and Scotland, as well as the Louvre Museum, the ancestral and complex relationship of man and nature is portrayed through a series of striking ceremonies, contemporary dance performances and words, narrated by performance artist Marina Abramović. Between documentary and fiction, Gilles Delmas’ fascinating film is choreographed by Damien Jalet and hauntingly scored by composer Ryuchi Sakamoto.
Dates: 28th May
Times: 4pm
Price: €10
Fast Track to Dance
On Saturday 27 May, let the Live Collision team immerse you in a jam-packed day of dance that will take you right to the heart of the 2017 Festival. Attend shows, meet Festival artists and engage in discussions about what you’ve seen in facilitated group sessions. Then you’ll meet back the next day for a debrief and a coffee, followed by a Sunday afternoon dance film screening. This is a great opportunity for anyone who’s keen to develop a critical eye and learn more about the artform. It’ll be fun and it’ll be FAST!
Dates: 27th – 28th May
Times: 2pm-5.10pm
Price: €50
Deep Clean
Once there was a wee dancer sweating her heart outin Holland. One day her meat hit the floor. THUMP. She crawled home and covered the bone. Her mind full of images she started chopping. Chop chop chop at the newspaper, the magazines, the flyers on the street. Soon telafone Straat was full of contorted mouths and cheap ripped slashdash painted FranIS Bacons love. Thins, a shaved head, hunched over a Burrough’s pride. She came home to Ireland. The meat that hit the floor was getting older, the fabrics around her grew softer for the flesh. Still chop chop chopping, she worries it will never be the same as the late white nights of Holland. The smell of that tipex room , 3am, 100 rollies, Pavel says are you ok? Aye , I just need to finish Madonna’s eyeball then I’ll sleep.
Dates: 9th-28th May
Times: N/A
Price: Free
Master Class – Colin Dunne
Colin Dunne will lead an introductry class in rhythmical improvisation for traditional Irish step dancers. The class is suitable for dancers with proficient technique in hard shoe. Dunne will share his approach to using improvisation to create new rhythmical patterns, and will lead the dancers through a series of exercises to stimulate the creation of their own step material. For ages 16 and over. Dancers should bring hard shoes.
Dates: 19th May
Times: 12-1.30pm
Price: €12
Master Class – Emanuel Gat
Emanuel Gat will lead a choreographic workshop for dancers, allowing them an insight into his creative process and an opportunity to explore new choreographic construction. Participants will experiment with co-dependence and interrelation, as well as systems of choreogrpahic construction. Suitable for dancers and dance students.
Dates: 23rd May
Times: 12-3pm
Price: €12
Master Class – Stephanie Cumming
This workshop by Stephanie Cumming of acclaimed Austrian company Liquid Loft will offer and insight into the physical vocabulary and working methods of the company. Starting with a warm-up, the class will explore various aspects of Liquid Loft’s stylised physicality and its intricate connection
Dates: 20th May
Times: 2-3.30pm
Price: €12
Childrens Workshop
This fun dance work shop at The Ark for ages 6+ will be led by Roberta Racis from Balletto di Roma based on their show At Home Alone. Content will be adapted to suit the level of the participants and will include contemporary dance techniques as well as short choreographies imagined by the children together with Roberta.
Dates: 20th May
Times: 11-12pm
Price: €11
Workshops Top 8 at DanceHouse
Social Dance/Party Dance – Soul Brother Chi, from the UK will represent the Sui Generis crew.
Break Dance – Anton LB Phung – From the UK, Anton joins us as part of SMAC 19 Crew, one of the UK’S first generation breaking crews and multi-award winners.
Joint Workshop – Krump with Jordan Likiyo – From Belgium Jordan represents the European Krump community.
Dates: 20th May
Times: 1pm-4pm
Price: €10
Moving Conversations
Create, the EU collaborative Arts Partnership Programme (CAPP) , Dublin Dance Festival and Dance Limerick are delighted to team up to support a research residency focusing on socially engaged dance by the distinguished German dramaturge, curator, writer and researcher Sandra Noeth. During a week-long residency with Dance Limerick and Dublin Dance Festival , Noeth aims to open up new ideas and prompt critical debate around collective and co-creative relationships between dance and its soccial and political environments. Her explorations and collaborations will be grounded in her practice as a dramatruge and her ongoing research on bodies in bordering situations and bodies subjected to structural or systematic violence.
Arising from this residency, Noeth will lead a public panel discussion sharing models and and examples that connect and expand on the following questions: how might physical and choreographic strategies represent, implement, legitimise and rehearse social and political action? In this time of conflict how do empathy, presence, improvisation or compositions inform the experience of borders? Noeth will be joined by a panel of arts practitioners and cultural commentators.
Dates: 25th May
Times: 2.30-4.30pm
Price: Free
For more information check out http://www.dublindancefestival.ie
