DDF2023 Programme Announcement

The programme for Dublin Dance Festival’s 2023 Edition was announced today Tuesday 7th March by Catherine Martin, Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, at The Dean Dublin.

Minister Catherine Martin said, “Ireland enjoys a rich tradition of dance and as Minister for the Arts, I am proud to acknowledge the extraordinary progress of dance as an artform. My Department, through the Arts Council, has funded the Dublin Dance Festival since 2002 with funding in the region of €500,000 per year for the last number of years.” The Minister continued, “Dublin Dance Festival has changed dance in Ireland in a significant and lasting way. Over the last twenty years the Festival has become a significant platform, encouraging artistic collaboration, experimentation and innovation in dance, bringing the best dance productions from around the globe and sharing important works from our Irish-based dance artists.”

DDF 2023 will be bringing dance to Dublin venues from the Abbey Theatre to Wood Quay Amphitheatre, with world premieres, free activities, a new commission for children, explorations of sustainability, statements of empathy, and celebrations of the power of community.

The Abbey stage will be home to three superb, large-scale performances.

The Köln Concert, a brave and tender celebration of genres, gender roles and personal triumph from Trajal Harrell / Schauspielhaus Zürich Dance Ensemble, will open the festival. This elegantly subversive piece, inspired by voguing, ballroom culture and iconic jazz, interprets the most famous solo piano recording of all time, The Köln Concert by Keith Jarrett. Seeking to unite people with different world views, languages, identities, and beliefs, these performances will be the first time the work of internationally celebrated American choreographer Harrell has been presented in Dublin.

Oona Doherty, one of Europe’s major choreographic talents, and former DDF Dance Artist in Residence, returns to Dublin Dance Festival and the Abbey stage with Navy Blue, her most ambitious work to date. Featuring music from Sergeï Rachmaninoff and Jamie xx, this compelling new work, created by Doherty in collaboration with a cast of twelve exceptional dancers, explores crisis, redemption, and re-birth. Referencing the power structures that contain us, this is a brutal and beautiful search for meaning and purpose.

Closing the festival, LOVETRAIN2020 by Emanuel Gat Dance Company is an exuberant contemporary "musical” for 13 dancers, set to the hits of 80s duo Tears for Fears. Gat, one of the most renowned choreographers of his generation, returns to DDF with this feast for the senses, with sumptuous baroque-style costumes and dramatic chiaroscuro lighting adding layers of texture and colour to his exhilarating celebration of connection, life and love.

At the Complex is KING | SHRINE, a ceremonial performance and installation work by renowned choreographer Emma Martin celebrating the end of the world as we know it, and imagining a new beginning. In this dual work, KING is a performance created for dancer, Mufutau Yusuf (Junior), and sound artist/ DJ, Mick Donohoe, leaning on the arc of ascension, reign and death as a frame to consider humanity’s era of domination, and our powerlessness in the face of nature’s will. SHRINE, the accompanying installation, evokes a grotto-like space manifested by sculpture, light and sound. Using materials and symbols associated with the opulence of churches and palaces, at the heart of this installation is a soundscape that rides through apocalyptic disaster, the abyss, and the birth of a new world.

Project Arts Centre will be home to work from five artists during the festival.

[The Prometheus Project]: The Archivist by award-winning Irish choreographer and current DDF Artist in Residence Luke Murphy is an immersive installation that follows one character in the final hours of life as they know it. Adapting the classic story of Prometheus, the god who gave fire to humans, and anticipating the moment when Zeus took it away, over the coming months and years Murphy’s series The Prometheus Project will introduce us to a community of people preparing to lose power, The Archivist being the first instalment. Framed within the confines of a ‘room’, in this performance installation the protagonist awaits Zeus' inevitable retribution, counting down the moments to both an ending and a beginning.

Yes and Yes from Liz Roche Company is an evocative contemporary response to James Joyce’s Ulysses. Featuring four exceptional dancers, this piece explores the sensuality, absurdity, release, and resignation of Joyce’s masterpiece through movement, film, sound and design. 100 years since the first publication of Ulysses, this dance work takes its title from the final episode of the book and its famous last words, “…yes, I said yes I will Yes”, exclaimed by Molly Bloom.

Mesmerizing, hypnotic and relentless The Pretty Things from Compagnie Catherine Gaudet is a cathartic journey to liberation via repetition and revolt. In this critically acclaimed dance work with five dancers, the award-winning Canadian choreographer examines the false pretences of the show business apparatus and seeks out a space where desires can be reborn.

Best Regards from Italian dancer and choreographer Marco D’Agostin is a touching tribute to his beloved mentor - the irrepressible and radical performer, Nigel Charnock, co-founder of DV8 Physical Theatre. “Dear N, you were too much.” With these words, dancer Wendy Houston opened her farewell letter to friend and colleague Nigel Charnock, a few days after his death. Best Regards is an invitation to the audience to consider: what would you write to someone who will never read your words?

Pan Pan presents the world premiere of The Sudden, an emotional and participative search for the perfect moment - the answer, the ending, the reveal. Exploring everything in reverse, The Sudden starts with a closing night party. By all accounts, it hasn't gone well… The cast of dancers use the audience to put together the final scene - the missing piece of the puzzle - in an innovative experiment in live direction, authorship and choreography.

The Race is a fun, interactive and inclusive new dance piece for children aged 4+, commissioned from acclaimed international choreographer, artistic director and dancer, Marc Brew. This exciting new work entwines three of Aesop's Fables to create a colourful world of animals, puppets, theatre and movement, presented by a cast of disabled and non-disabled dance artists. All performances have been created to offer an inclusive audience experience. The show is relaxed in nature and welcomes children who are neurodiverse. The Race is presented as part of the MOVE Commission, a new partnership by Dublin Dance Festival, The Ark and Arts & Disability Ireland that aims to create a dynamic new work for young audiences, bringing diverse voices and perspectives, while stimulating and growing accessibility in dance-making practice in Ireland.

The festival continues to explore new formats to engage with our city by inviting all our citizens without exclusion to join in and participate.

In free performances at Wood Quay Amphitheatre on Friday 26th & Saturday 27th May, Finnish choreographer Taneli Törma will present his meditative work ALIEN created with 9 local dancers, a striking tribute to anyone who has ever felt like a stranger - an outsider - an “other”. Combining movement language from clubbing culture and traditional folk dance, both of which connect the individual to larger, collective waves of movement, ALIEN becomes a large-scale, moving and living statue.

An innovative digital dance installation Kindred by choreographer Liz Roche & projection, motion and interaction design specialists Lightscape will bring dance and technology together to explore sustainability and human connection. Commissioned by the ESB Brighter Future Arts Fund in partnership with Business to Arts, this free public installation will be housed at ESB’s new sustainable headquarters on Fitzwilliam Street. Featuring a soundscape by Ray Harman, Kindred asks us to consider our role, individually and collectively, in creating a liveable future together. 

Also free and at ESB Head Office, Feimatta Conteh, Environmental Sustainability Manager of Factory International, will lead a round table discussion Sustainable Connections – a Collaborative Exploration, exploring our relationship with one another and the planet; deepening our understanding of the ecology of the world around, and within, us.

During DDF 2023 dancers and dance lovers will be able to take master classes with festival artists and discover new works by emerging choreographers with the Originate programme at DanceHouse on Foley Street. The Originate – Performance Showcase will include extracts from recent choreographies and new works-in-development from Magdalena Hylak, Mufatau Yusuf , and Jessie Thompson.

Dublin Dance Festival acknowledges the generous support of: Principal Funder: The Arts Council of Ireland/An Chomhairle Ealaíon Supported by: Dublin City Council
Media partners: RTÉ Supporting the Arts, The Irish Times Accommodation partner: The Castle Hotel
Cultural partners: Big Pulse Dance Alliance, Culture Ireland, Creative Europe, Embassy of France in Ireland, Pro Helvetia, Québec Government Office
Programme partners: Abbey Theatre, Arts & Disability Ireland, Dance Ireland, The Ark
Supporters: ESB, Business to Arts, Dunne & Crescenzi
Strategic Design Partners: wov
Brand design: aad

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