DANCER from the DANCE 2021: Choreographers
An ONLINE Dance Celebration of over 30 Irish Choreographers from Ireland and the Irish diaspora who cross national borders, practices, ethnicities and generations, curated by John Scott
Zoë Ashe-Browne
Zoë is a professional dance artist and choreographer from Dublin. She trained at the English National Ballet School between 2006-09 and subsequently danced for English National Ballet, National Ballet of Ireland and BallettVorpommern in Germany. She is now a dance artist with Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and guest dancer with Company Eastman Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, both of which are based in Antwerp, Belgium.
Alessandra Azevedo
Alessandra is an Afro-Brazilian dancer, Capoeira performer and instructor from Salvador, Bahia - home to the largest African diaspora population and home of Afro-Brazilian culture. Since moving to Ireland in 2015 she has championed her culture by setting up a Capoeira training and performance group. From 2018 Alessandra established herself as a leading Afro-Brazilian dancer with performances at major festivals with her group Criola Dance. Since coming to Ireland, Alessandra has worked with choreographers Catherine Young, Selma Daniel, Andreia Williams and John Scott.
Tara Brandel / Croi Glan Integrated Dance Company
Tara is a contemporary dancer and choreographer originally from West Cork, Ireland. She trained at the Laban Center in London, and has been choreographing extensively since 1990. Most recently Tara has toured her latest solo Circus to San Francisco International Arts Festival, Seattle International Dance Festival, Cork Midsummer Festival, Dublin Fringe Festival and FRESH, San Francisco. Tara co-founded Croi Glan in 2004.
Morgan Bullock
Morgan Bullock is a 21 year old American, world-ranked, Irish step dancer who began dancing at an early age. At ten years old she saw Irish dancing for the first time and was instantly drawn to the intricate footwork and grew to love the discipline it required to master the steps. She gained popularity when she decided to choreograph, record and post her version of a popular TikTok dance to Beyonce and Megan the Stallion’s megahit “Savage”. It went viral with over three million views to date. Morgan’s talent as a dancer/choreographer as well as her presence as a social media influencer drew attention from around the world. Since then, the popular theatrical Irish dance show Riverdance has invited her to perform in the UK and USA tours this year.
Darrah Carr / Darrah Carr Dance
Darrah Carr is the Artistic Director of Darrah Carr Dance - a Bessie-Award nominated professional Irish dance company that specializes in ModERIN – a unique blend of traditional Irish step and contemporary modern dance. Recent performance highlights include: Good Morning America, NBC’s The Today Show, a performance with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, The Duke Theater on 42nd Street, Celebrate Brooklyn, Victory Dance at the New Victory Theater, and the company’s annual New York City season at the Irish Arts Center. Darrah Carr Dance is represented by Siegel Artist Management.
Yoshiko Chuma / The School of Hard Knocks
Yoshiko (conceptual artist, choreographer/artistic director of The School of Hard Knocks) has been a firebrand in the post-modern dance scene of New York City since the 1980s, has been consistently producing thought-provoking work that is neither dance nor theatre nor film nor any other pre-determined category. She is an artist on her own journey. A path that has taken her to over 40 ‘out of the way’ countries and collected over 2,000 artists, thinkers and collaborators of every genre since establishing her company The School of Hard Knocks in New York in 1980.
Seán Curran - Benjamin Freedman / Seán Curran Company
Seán’s 35-year career includes Bessie Award winning performances with Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and as an original cast member of STOMP!; 25 years as Artistic Director of Seán Curran Company; and choreography/direction for numerous opera productions. He is Chair and Arts Professor at NYU Tisch Dance.
Benjamin Freedman has danced with Mark Morris Dance Group, Keigwin + Company, Seán Curran Company, Third Rail Projects’ The Grand Paradise, The Bang Group, Company XIV, Santa Fe Opera, and The Metropolitan Opera Ballet. He is an Adjunct Professor at NYU Tisch Dance and has presented his choreography in NYC.
Joan Davis
Joan has been exploring the nature of creativity, particularly from a body based perspective, for over 40 years. She pioneered contemporary dance in Ireland in the 70s & 80s and has experimented with collaborative art as a professional artist and therapist.
Cristian Dirocie
Cristian is a professional dancer, model and music artist from the Dominican Republic.
He specialises in the Street Dance styles – Breakdance, Krump and HipHop - and has won several competitions including SOAR UK – HipHop Masters (2017) Rep Your Style (2018) Juice Box 2019 and HipHop International 2020. He has been based in Ireland since 2014 working as a freelance dancer, dance teacher, choreographer and model.
Oona Doherty
Oona is a dance artist and choreographer based in Northern Ireland. She has been performing dance theatre internationally since 2010 with companies such as TRASH (NL), Abbattoir Ferme (BE), Veronika Riz (IT), Emma Martin /United Fall (IE) and Enda Walsh (IE). Oona’s choreography has toured extensively to critical acclaim: Hope Hunt & the Ascension into Lazarus, Hard to be Soft - A Belfast Prayer and Lady Magma. Doherty is the Dublin Dance Festival Artist in Residence 2021-2023. She was awarded the 2021 Venice Biennale Silver Lion Dance Award and she is one of the seven chosen artists of the European Big Pulse Award.
Justine Doswell
Justine Doswell is a dance artist, choreographer and creative producer based in Dublin since 1997. She has worked with numerous notable Irish and international choreographers, directors and companies. Inspired by dynamic structure and living systems her choreographic practice has been supported by The Arts Council, Dublin City Council, Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Dublin Dance Festival, Dance Ireland, Dance Limerick, LD Dance Shawbrook, Liz Roche Company and The Lir Academy, THEATREClub, Dance Resource Base, The Complex and Dublin Youth Dance Company. Justine is an Irish Modern Dance Theatre 2021 Associate Artist.
Fionnuala Doyle-Wade
Fionnuala is a dance artist and teacher originally from Seattle and now based in Galway city. She creates within contemporary and modern forms of dance, and has regularly worked with the Galway Dance Project and Genevieve Ryan Dance Academy. Most recently, Fionnuala took part in Brú Theatre’s artist development program, Remote Control, receiving mentorship from Oona Doherty.
Linda Fearon with Caroline Bowditch / Croi Glan Integrated Dance Company
Dancer Linda Fearon has worked with Croí Glan since 2014. She is also a dancer with Luminous Soul Dance Project and has danced with companies including Candoco Dance, Blue Eyed Soul, Maiden Voyage Dance, Echo Echo Dance and Pony Dance.
Performance artist and choreographer, Caroline is a performer, maker, teacher, speaker. She has choreographed/performed work as girl jonah with Fiona Wright; created a number of her own works; and co-created work as Scottish Dance Theatre’s Dance Agent for Change (2008-2012).
Kristyn Fontanella / Fontanella Dance Company
As a choreographer/dance artist Kristyn Fontanella focuses her past knowledge of Irish step dancing and presents it in a contemporary context. Having toured for many years with Riverdance, Lord of the Dance and as lead soloist in Gaelforce Dance, her current mission is to show another side of the complex world of Irish Step dancing to future generations.
Nic Gareiss
Named one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch," Nic (he/they) has been hailed by the New York Times for his "dexterous melding of Irish and Appalachian dance" and called "the most inventive and expressive step dancer on the scene” by the Boston Herald. He reimagines movement as a musical practice, recasting dance as a medium that appeals to both eyes and ears. Gareiss engages many percussive dance traditions, weaving together a dance technique facilitating his love of improvisation, clog, flatfoot, and step dance footwork vocabulary, and musical collaboration.
Aphra Hartmann
Aphra is a dance artist based in Dublin. Beginning her dance training in ballet and contemporary at Shawbrook School of Dance, Aphra went on to receive a QQI Level 5 award in Dance Studies from Inchicore College of Further Education in 2019. Since then, Aphra has performed for Dublin Youth Dance Company, choreographed in La Briqueterie CDCN, and was chosen as a choreographer for NOISE Moves’ EMERGENCE 2021 programme.
Jessie Keenan
Jessie is a choreographer making work that crosses over into science, visual art, architecture and archives. Interdisciplinary connections are at the heart of her work. Current project: Don’t Anticipate The Ending, a collaboration with composer Robbie Blake & academic researcher Dr Zosia Kuczyńska, presented online by the Museum of Literature Ireland, Summer 2021.
Raja Feather Kelly / the feath3r theory
Raja is a choreographer, a director, and the artistic director of the feath3r theory. He is a three-time Princess Grace Award winner (2017, 2018, 2019), two-time Lucille Lortel Award nominee (2019, 2020), and 2019 Chita Rivera Award nominee. In 2020 he was the Obie Award winner and Outer Critics Circle Award honoree for choreography for the Pulitzer-winning musical A Strange Loop. In 2019 he was an SDCF Joe A. Callaway Award finalist for both A Strange Loop and the Pulitzer-winning play Fairview. Raja is also the 2019–2020 Randjelović/Stryker Resident Commissioned Artist at New York Live Arts, an inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, and a 2019 Creative Capital award recipient. He is a current fellow of HERE Arts, the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU, and a Creative Associate at The Juilliard School. Over the past decade, Kelly has created fifteen evening-length premieres with his company the feath3r theory as well as directing and choreographing extensively for Off-Broadway theatre in New York City. His choreography has also garnered a 2018 Breakout Award from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation (SDCF) and the Solange MacArthur Award for New Choreography (2016), and he was Dance Magazine's inaugural Harkness Promise Award (2018). He was born in Fort Hood, Texas and holds a B.A. in Dance and English from Connecticut College.
Orla McCarthy
Orla grew up in Co. Longford where she began her dance training in Shawbrook. She pursued a BA in contemporary dance in Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts. In 2015, Orla began working as a freelance dance artist based between Germany and the Netherlands. In 2018 Orla co-created the multidisciplinary dance project “PERSON A”, with Max Makowski. They presented their work in Dock11, Berlin and VonHotz SommerBox, Luzern. Since September of 2018, Orla has been working with Dance Theater Heidelberg in Germany under the direction of Iván Pérez. Along with performing in the ensemble, she continues to create and present her own work.
Eileen McClory / Maiden Voyage Dance
Eileen has received commissions from Quotidian At the Margins 2021, Maiden Voyage Dance Company BRINK 2020, The Playhouse, Derry TURF 2019 and Tinderbox Theatre Company CUCK 2017. Under Off the Rails Dance #OTR Eileen has choreographed and produced The Dutiful Wife 2016, and S(3)nsored 2011 and received an Artist Career Enhancement Award from Arts Council NI in 2018.
Ingrid Nachstern / Night Star Dance Company
Ingrid is the Artistic Director of Night Star Dance Company. She has created 15 works for it and three Experimental/Screendance films. The latter have been screened internationally and won 30 international awards. Nachstern has performed in New York (for Steve Paxton in MoMA, for Buglisi Dance Theater at Lincoln Center, her own solo at DTW), Barcelona (La Caldera, El Graner), Buenos Aires (Centro Cultural Borges). She is represented by agencesilver models in Paris and SOS models in London.
Ríonach Ní Néill
Ríonach is a dance artist and curator of Galway Dance Days | Corp Real International Dance Festival and Symposium. As a performer, Ríonach has danced for many Irish choreographers including Finola Cronin, Fearghus Ó Conchúir and Rex Levitates (now Liz Roche Dance), and was a long-time member of Tanztheater Bremen under the artistic direction of Urs Dietrich. She founded Ciotóg in 2006, for which she has choreographed 11 works that have been performed across the US, UK, Europe and Ireland, winning international awards. Ríonach has developed dance programmes for older people, in both Irish and English, including the Macushla Dance Club in Dublin and Ar mo sheanléim in the Connemara Gaeltacht.
Fearghus Ó Conchúir
Frequently collaborating with experts from across and beyond the arts, Fearghus has made film and live performances as frameworks for audiences and artists to build communities together. He’s currently co-leading a dance programme with Micro Rainbow International that he initiated as part of The Casement Project (2016) to support LGBT refugees and asylum seekers.
Tere O’Connor / Tere O'Connor Dance
Tere O’Connor is the Artistic Director of Tere O’Connor Dance in NYC and a Center for Advanced Studies Professor at the University of Illinois. He has created over 40 works for his company and many commissions, including Lyon Opera Ballet and Mikhail Baryshnikov. He received a 2013 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, among numerous other grants and awards and has won three BESSIES. He is currently researching his new work Rivulets.
Anne O’Donnell / Siamsa Tire
Anne started her training with the National Folk Theatre, Siamsa Tíre, at the tender age of 8 and has been performing with the company for 4 decades. She completed an MA in Contemporary Dance Performance at the University of Limerick and is currently head of Training & Development at Siamsa Tíre in Tralee.
Eoin Ó Fíannachta
Eoin is a choreographer from Cork City, and has studied Ballet, Modern, and Aerial Dance. He debuted as a choreographer at the Noise Moves Youth Dance Festival’s Emergence programme in May 2021. He was recently accepted to begin studies in Dance Practices (BA) in Middlesex University, London where he will develop his choreographic practice.
Liam O'Scanláin / Liam Scanlon Dance
Liam O'Scanláin is a former Oireachtas na Gaelige winner, Liam has an MA from the Irish World Academy at University of Limerick. Between 2015 and 2017, Liam was part of Irish-Quebecois collaboration of Sokalo Remix, with Montreal-based Zeugma Danse. In 2018, Liam joined forces with sean-nós singer Lorcan MacMathuna and musician Daire Bracken to choreograph Preab Meadar.
Simone O'Toole / SoToDanceCompany
After graduating in 2018 with a BA from Fontys Dance Academy, The Netherlands, Simone has gone on to work and tour with choreographers such as Catherine Young (Ireland), Guillherme Miotto,Corpo Máquina (Holland) and John Scott of Irish Modern Dance Theatre (Ireland).
Simone is currently back in Ireland researching new works and developing her own company sotodancecompany.
Tobi Omoteso
Tobi is an internationally acclaimed B-boy (breakdancer) and Hip-Hop Freestyle dancer. Trained at Broadway Dance Centre New York, Tobi has been dancing for over 15 years and is dedicated to supporting the foundations of this dynamic and influential dance form. Tobi is curator and director of TOP 8 at Dublin Dance Festival. Now heading into its 7th year, the event continues to grow in size and popularity.
Ciara Sexton
Ciara is an Irish dancing professional, choreographer, lecturer, television announcer and presenter. She is a five-time World & All-Ireland Champion and has starred as lead dancer in Riverdance, Heartbeat of Home and in both Lord of the Dance and Lord of the Dance 3D, alongside Michael Flatley. After producing, directing and choreographing her first commercial Irish Dance show 'The Celtic Gift' in 2017, in 2019 Ciara directed, choreographed and starred in a new production, ‘Fainne Oir’ which premiered to sold-out crowds in Ireland and then on Broadway. Ciara has been a lecturer at The Irish World Academy at The University of Limerick since 2014.
Morleigh Steinberg / ARCANE Collective
Morleigh - a native of Los Angeles California - is a dancer/choreographer, lighting designer, filmmaker and visual artist. She toured with Momix, ISO Dance and ARCANE Collective. She has shot and directed several dance films. Morleigh co-founded ARCANE Space in Venice, California producing and presenting visual arts in a “gallery” setting.
Róisín Whelan
Róisín is a dancer and choreographer based in Carlow. As a performer, Róisín has worked with Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures and Black Box Dance Company.
Mintesinot Wolde / Mintesinot Wolde Dance Company
Minte is a professional contemporary dance artist who graduated with an MA from the University of Limerick. He's the artistic director of Mintesinot Wolde Dance Company. He’s an active member of Dance Ireland, Artist Panellist for Roscommon County Council, and was recently appointed as a new board member of Galway Dance Project.
Mary Wycherley
Mary is a dance artist whose work spans live performance, the moving image and curation. Interdisciplinarity is a key feature in her work, with collaborations connecting widely across a range of artists and contexts. Her work is experienced on stage, in cinematic and exhibition contexts, with work presented and commissioned both in Ireland and internationally for venues, galleries and festivals.
Chris Yon, Taryn Griggs, Steve Morrison
Chris and Taryn create original dance works that are deadpan slapstick, understated melodrama, autobiographical science fiction, cubist vaudeville, asymmetrically consonant explorations of magic and virtuosity in everyday movement. Steve Morrison’s art uses paint, animation, digital processes, and sculpture to enact a tragicomic theater of impermanence.
Mufutau Yusuf
Nigerian/Irish performer Mufutau is a graduate of Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, currently working as a freelance artist between Ireland and Brussels. His interest lies in multi-disciplinarity, which he aims to implement in his own works.