DDF News — 30 Jul 2026
Dance at Dublin Theatre Festival 2026
From radical reimaginings of ballet to deeply personal explorations of memory, ageing and desire, this year’s programme from our friends at Dublin Theatre Festival has plenty to excite dance and movement lovers.
Florentina Holzinger – TANZ
A thrilling Irish premiere comes to Dublin this autumn with Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger’s TANZ. Described by the festival itself as “bloody, bold, and thrilling”, the work takes nineteenth-century Romantic ballet as its starting point and turns the traditional ballet class on its head.
Set within a spectacular world of Action Ballet, TANZ brings together an all-female cast ranging in age from 30 to 70, drawing on a wide range of dance backgrounds and physical practices. The performers train, fly and push the boundaries of what the body can do, while the work asks what it means to inherit a dance tradition and how we might reckon with its ideas of beauty, discipline and the body.
With its fearless physicality and boundary-pushing approach, TANZ promises to be an unforgettable Dublin debut from one of contemporary performance’s most distinctive voices.
TANZ runs at O’Reilly Theatre, Belvedere College on Sat 26 September at 7:30PM and Sun 27 September at 6PM.
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Philip Connaughton – Rebellious Hope
Irish choreographer Philip Connaughton returns to Dublin Theatre Festival with Rebellious Hope, a new work bringing dance, live music and personal testimony together in an exploration of endurance, desire and memory.
Connaughton, whose work has featured with Dublin Dance Festival, brings together seven internationally acclaimed dancers aged 46 to 86 alongside renowned composer and musician Mel Mercier. Together, they create a performance that celebrates the richness of bodies shaped by decades of experience, while asking what remains, what endures, and what keeps us moving forward.
There’s something particularly exciting about seeing Connaughton return to Dublin Theatre Festival with a work that places movement, lived experience and the ageing body at its centre. Rebellious Hope offers a powerful reminder that dance is not confined to youth or virtuosity, but can be a place for memory, vulnerability, mischief and defiance.
Rebellious Hope runs from 1–4 October at Project Arts Centre, with a preview performance on 30 September.
Find out more and book tickets
Check out the full Dublin Theatre Festival programme, it’s well worth it!