NUI Galway To Host 3RD Galway Dance Days Festival

Mar 21 2014 Posted: 17:02 GMT

NUI Galway Dance Artist in Residence, Ríonach Ní Néill curates a compelling line-up for Galway Dance Days Festival and Corp_Real International Symposium 2014

For the third year running, NUI Galway and Galway City plays host to a distinctive dance festival and symposium. Galway Dance Days presents a series of powerful, ambitious and captivating world and Galway premieres throughout the city from the 28-30 March 2014.

Ríonach Ní Néill, NUI Galway Dance Artist in Residence and curator of the festival said, “Ireland is creating really exciting dance, and I'm delighted that Galway Dance Days is hosting such a diversity of premieres, from intimate solos to large-scale theatrical spectacles. It's a real dialogue with the city, as dance spills out of the theatre and turns up in unexpected places, such as office buildings and shopping centres.”

Anti-Capitalism:The Musical! is a fairytale of musical theatre, using circus, song, and dance to create a near-future political reality similar to our own. Social criticism wrapped in wit, glee and stunning physical and vocal performance, it has a cast of 15 dancers, singers, circus performers, actors and a live band. Employing acrobatics, plot twists, assassinations, and intrigue to tell the witty tale of a heroic group of everyday acrobats, aided by the Greek-chorus style narrations of a powerful triumvirate of fairy godmothers. Choreographed and composed by American, Deirdre Murphy, it has its world premiere at The Cube, Bailey Allen Building, NUI Galway for two nights only, 29-30 March.

Swedish choreographer Maria Nilsson Waller transforms the raw concrete of a vacant office building into a world resonating with the wonders of the sea, with the premiere of Founder. Deeply poetic and lyrical, Maria's choreography brings nature into the performance space, mapping vast territories in human movement and voice. An accomplished musician, Maria also composed the soundtrack for the work, mentored by composer George Higgs. It takes place at Fairgreen House, Fairgreen Road on Friday, 28 March at 8pm.

Galway-based choreographer, Judith Sibley and Chrysalis Dance Company will perform the specially commissioned work These Moments, a new and evocative piece, continuing Sibley's pushing of the boundaries of classical dance. It will be part of a series of dance works by Irish female choreographers on Saturday, 28 March at Fairgreen House, marking womens' experiences in Ireland, past and present.

Following Fitzgerald and Stapleton's sold-out performance at GDD 13, Emma Fitzgerald returns with an intimate solo, The Sea and the Shape of My Heart. Galway has a chance to see Aoife McAtamney's Softer Swells, selected from international competition for the prestigious Aerowaves European tour, and emerging choreographer Úna Little presents Grace, a hauntingly vulnerable solo about Magdalene Ireland. It takes place at Fairgreen House, Fairgreen Road on Friday, 28 March.

Art holds a mirror up to society, and the Galway Dance Days performances raise important questions about the environment, gender and activism, which will be the focus of public discussion at the Corp_Real International Symposium, running throughout the festival from 28-30 March in the Bailey Allen Hall, with fieldtrips in Galway city centre.

Convened by Dr Aoife McGrath (Queens University), Dr Finola Cronin (UCD), and NUI Galway Dance Artist in Residence, Ríonach Ní Néill, this multi-disciplinary public forum brings together Galway, Irish and international artists, activists and academics, to look at how dance and artistic practices engage with social issues. Swedish landscape architect Carola Wingren speaks about introducing dance into climate-change research in southern Sweden, to which Liverpool academic Rachel Sweeney adds an Australian perspective on flooding.

Choreographing Feminist Politics in Ireland brings together a group of artists that have created works that tackle issues of body politics and women’s experiences in Irish society. Sunday's panels consider artists' contributions to a more equitable society, while the convergence of visual art, film, and theatre on corporeal art is the focus of Saturday morning's panel. Disciplinary boundaries are further stretched by Galwegian artist Michelle Browne, in an experimental collaboration, My Methyl with choreographer Emma Martin out and about in Galway centre. It takes place at Fairgreen House on Friday, 28 March.

Additional events will include; Body and Environment at the Bailey Allen Hall on March 28 from 12.30pm-6pm and 29 March from 10am-4pm; Performing The Body at the Bailey Allen Hall on 29 March from 10am-1pm; Fieldtrips and site-specific performance in Galway city on 29 March from 1pm-2.45pm; Body, Activism and Engagement on 30 March from 10.30am-4pm at the Bailey Allen Hall.

Tickets are €15/€12. All-in Festival tickets €39/€30. Symposium tickets are €5 per day. Bookings can be made at www.entertainment.ie

Full programme details are available at www.ciotog.ie

For updates and special offers, follow www.Facebook/Galwaydancedays

Ends.

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