Chrysalis dancers reach new high with Three Piece Suite

Date Published: {J}

“If the body goes naturally one way, I like to send it the other to see what happens,” says choreographer Judith Sibley of her approach to dance.

Judith is one of three Galway based choreographers who have created three different works for Three Piece Suite, a new show being presented by her dance company Chrysalis at the Town Hall Theatre next Monday, October 25.

With dancers from the English National Ballet, the Royal National Ballet and Michael Clarke Dance Company in Chrysalis, Judith describes the company as “world class” and hopes that Galway audiences will turn out to see the premiere of their new show.

Chrysalis was set up in 2004 and has a reputation for fusing fluid classical ballet with intricate contemporary dance to challenge its dancers and entertain its audience.

Last year the company year staged All the Ways You Wander, set to the music of John Spillane, and in 2006 presented Wishes and Waves, working with music from BellX1 and Declan O’Rourke.

Judith’s fellow choreographers for Three Piece Suite include Galway’s former Dancer in Residence Tanya McRory and dancer Leighton Morrison. While each piece is distinct, the three choreographers take the technique of classical ballet and bring it in more modern directions.

Turn out the Stars, choreographed by Tanya, is a quirky and playful exploration of life’s everyday wonders, says Judith. It was created last summer but this is its first outing.

“I wanted to work with Tanya, because she is so good and because having artists working together is important to promote dance.”

The second piece, The Other Way, is by Leighton Morrison, who was Judith’s dance partner in Ballet Ireland before becoming her partner in life and the father of her two children.

It was inspired by the music of Gabriel Yared and Charles Aznavour and is a lament for how life can pass us by as we are looking the other way. Leighton, who is Chrysalis’s principal dancer has been a soloist in the English National Ballet and worked with companies in Vienna and Rotterdam as well as taking on roles in musicals including Cats.

A trained ballet teacher he has previously choreographed for Youth Ballet West, the training company run by Judith and her sister Phyllis Hayes.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.