Here’s an early gift for you….DDF is thrilled to announce a few of the highlights of the 2010 Festival, which will take place from May 7-23.

The centrepiece of DDF 2010 will be the influential German choreographer, Raimund Hoghe, whose work Young People, Old Voices is the inspiration for the core theme of the programme.  The recent deaths of Merce Cunningham and Pina Bausch, two 20th century dance icons, are markers of a generational shift that is occurring in contemporary dance.  Many of the works in the DDF 2010 programme will explore who and what define age.  How much is numerical, how much attitudinal? How are youth and age reflected in dance, onstage and in the studio? Other works will take into account the inclusivity of dance – body types and abilities as well as chronological age.

Director, Laurie Uprichard, says “Perhaps it’s a personal enquiry, but the choreographers of my generation, and those I first encountered in the 1970’s, are coming to an age at which earlier generations either retired or got fixed in their particular idiom.  Merce Cunningham, however, was innovating movement vocabularies until his recent death at the age of 90.   I want to see how artists, both young and old, break the rules and boundaries and speak with young voices, old voices and all those in between.”

In the vein of breaking boundaries, DDF is also delighted to announce the return of Jean Butler and Tere O’Connor, working together for the first time with a commission from the Abbey Theatre.

Raimund Hoghe’s Young People, Old Voices (2002) includes a cast of young people, 18-22 years old, four of whom will be chosen locally in an audition in Dublin.  The contrast between the youth and vitality of the young cast members with Hoghe’s solemn performance quality and physicality is especially poignant.  Hoghe’s work Swan Lake, 4 Acts was presented in the 2006 IDFI and he is acclaimed as one of the most important voices currently working in dance.

Find out more about Raimund Hoghe here.

Jean Butler asked Tere O’Connor to create a new solo for her, one that departs from her long history and training in Irish Dance.   Entitled DAY, this piece explores the ways we come to know a person beyond the narrative of his/her life.  Using a choreographic system in which the persona shifts constantly, the work weaves strands of affect, artifice and suggestion around the real performer.   DAY questions how much we can know someone and if our projections constitute our knowing more than the actual truth. The work will feature a score by O’Connor’s long time collaborator James Baker.  DAY has been commissioned by the Abbey Theatre and will premiere on the Peacock stage.

Tere O’Connor’s work Rammed Earth was seen at DDF 2008, while Jean Butler has performed in DDF 2008 in her first contemporary solo, does she take sugar?, and in DDF 2009 as part of Re-Presenting Ireland.

Read more about Tere O’Connor’s work here.

Don’t forget you can buy DDF gift vouchers online now – make sure you’re in the front row in May 2010!
Purchase your gift vouchers here.

The full DDF 2010 programme will be announced at the end of February.
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