WHAT'S ON: Dublin Fringe Festival - The Dance Edit

The excitement was high last week as the Dublin Fringe Festival launched their 2019 programme amidst heart-warming speeches, impassioned toasts and even a chorus of Happy Birthday to mark the festival's 25th year.

We were naturally eager to get our hands on a copy of the hotly anticipated brochure to find out what's on in this edition of Dublin Fringe Festival. Here are a few dance highlights that we were immediately drawn to...

Fresh from the First Looks programme at DDF2019:

INIT: The Warm Up Project by Lucia Kickham
14-16 September

Three dancers and a live DJ share a side of performance the audience rarely see. The pre-performance, the warm up. Hearts pumping and minds calm. Tuning in to the rhythm. We aim to hide nothing. 
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Soup by Headonbody
18-22 September

Simultaneously brutish, sensual, ridiculous and vulnerable. A kinetic shrine to a lost parent and a frantic meditation on the process of grief, reaching for a shared catharsis with the audience. 
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Dance (with a hint of music, theatre and comedy):

Villains by Luke Murphy
7-11 September

A live graphic novel presented through dance, theatre, and animation. In a world of Twitter wars, cycling news feeds and cancel culture, come explore the myths and legends we create, destroy and forget in the rise and fall from viral fame to infamy.
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Gym Swim Party by Danielle Galligan and Gavin Costick
11-15 September

Welcome to the turf war to end all wars. The two biggest gym chains in Dublin go head to head to settle old scores and gain control of the city. But when love crosses tribal lines, violence and vengeance gush across the city. 
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Champions of Dance by Lords of Strut
7 & 9-14 Sept

Bombastic and fantastically flamboyant dancing duo Famous Seamus and Sean-tastic bring you a dance-fantasy-opera of pure comic mayhem! Catapulted towards destiny as the chosen ones, our heroes must tackle a family feud, save the very soul of the world and pick the right outfit.
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Sauce by Camille Lucy Ross and Ciara Elizabeth Smyth
10, 12-14 & 17-21 September

Mella is a pathological liar. Maura is a kleptomaniac. Unsurprisingly, neither has any friends. Fresh out of controlling relationships, both women are thrust into uneasy freedom. A new dark comedy about monsters, condiments and dancing. Lots of dancing.
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Moondog & Irene by Dead Lady
17-21 September

Lots of people go to New York, in reality and in dreams: it’s the nexus of fantasy. So why wouldn’t decades dissolve when a cult favourite street musician in a Viking hat, Moondog, crops up in two separate lives? Through music, movement, and verbatim interview material, enter NYC as an astral plane documenting both history and self.
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Losing Your Body by Rachel Ní Bhraonáin
18-21 September

This dancer is primed for success — a flat in London, a flexible day job, trendy friends and the occasional gig go-go dancing. Any day now she’ll get her big break. If her breaking point doesn’t get there first. Told through theatre, dance, aerial and a healthy dose of self-deprecation. 
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Where dance meets circus:

Sorry Gold by Emily Aoibheann
18-21 Sept

If aerial is the dance of industrial technology, what will the dance of biotechnology be? This performance is part one of a twin-production project on the themes of civilisation and nature.
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[Re]framed (Double Bill) by Elena Lydia Kreusch & Darragh McLoughlin

12-15 Sept

Articulations: The performer conducts an intimate self-examination of her body in order for us to see ourselves. How many stories can be inscribed on one’s body?
Stickman: A circus piece on the surface and a tragedy at its core. Man and Stick engage in various improbable feats of balance. Easy to interpret as the TV tells you what to see. Until it starts to tell you what to do. 
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Circus by Tara Brandel
7-10 Sept

Who gets to dance? What kind of bodies are allowed to perform? What does it look like to be Irish? Playful, intense, poignant, irreverent; interrogate what makes an acceptable performer in contemporary Ireland, be it the ageing pole dancer, the migrant street dancer, or the non-normative body. 
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How to Square a Circle by Aisling Ní Cheallaigh & Ronan Brady
18-21 Sept

‘Just because something is impossible, doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying.’ A heartwarming story of friendship, ego, love and the joys of a cup of tea. With gravity-defying acrobatics, aerial dance, cyr wheel and lots of laughter.
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