Dance Festival steps up to the plate with mix of shows and workshops

Corp_Real – Galway Dance Days Festival, which runs from this Friday, April 8, Sunday April 10, celebrates its fifth birthday with an eclectic mix of contemporary and Irish step dance from international and Irish companies, created by established and emerging choreographers. The Festival will also host a Dance Artist Survival Toolkit workshop for professional dance artists.

A highlight of the weekend will be a double-bill from French company, Compagnie Nacera Belaza at the Black Box Theatre this Saturday. The award-winning duet Le Cri, recognised by the French Critics Union as the “choreographic revelation of the year”, will feature, alongside ensemble work Sur le Fil.

This company is run by self-taught Algerian choreographer Nacera Belaza, whose 20-year career has seen her progress from creating dances in her bedroom to being fêted world-wide. She received the prestigious Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 2015 in recognition of her contributions to the art-form. Belaza’s work evokes spiritual as well as artistic journeys, and draw from traditional Algerian dances and sacred rituals. Using a minimalistic aesthetic, she plays with time, seeking that point at which, “the body no longer limits”, to create hypnotic, beautiful works.

Connecting the traditional and contemporary is also a feature of Breandán de Gallaí’s work. This performer, choreographer, academic and television presenter is a giant presence in Irish step-dance, and has played a major role in bring Irish step-dance into the contemporary arts lexicon. His company Ériú will premiere Single…Jig? at the Black Box Theatre this Friday, April 8.

As a performer, de Gallaí achieved global recognition as principal dancer in Riverdance. As a choreographer, he pushes the boundaries of Irish step-dance, with large-scale works such as contemporary Irish dance ballet Rite of Spring, the multi-award nominated Nochtú, and this year’s Linger, which tackled sexuality and ageing. As New York’s The Villager stated, he “turns Irish step dancing into a movement vocabulary that can express a full range of emotion, not just virtuosic display”.

In his new work, Single…Jig?, de Gallaí partners with soundscape designer Paddy Mulcahy and an ensemble of Ériú dancers to take on the theme of being single in the digital age, creating a tale of uploaded personal profiles more in line with who people think they should be rather than who they really are.

Oona Doherty will share this double-bill with de Gallaí to perform in a special edition of her work HOPE HUNT. Doherty’s searing, brutally physical style has led her to be regarded as one of the most exciting choreographer/performers of her generation. HOPE HUNT reveals a gritty, urban aesthetic, and is a virtuosic hunt for truth and hope in a journey through European stereotypes of masculinity.

This year’s Corp_Real – Galway Dance Days symposium, The Dance Artists Survival Toolkit, is dedicated to the artists themselves.

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