Step Up: Dance Project

26 Aug 2012 -

03:00 pm

Tickets: €Free The project is a partnership between the Arts Council, Dance Ireland and the University of Limerick, which bridges the gap between dance education and professional contemporary dance practice in Ireland.
Building on the success of its pilot year, the initiative gives dance graduates an opportunity to work under the direction of guest choreographers Liz Roche (IRL) and John Jasperse (US) to create a programme of short works. These will be premiered at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick, DanceHouse in Dublin, and at the Firkin Crane in Cork in August. Guest teachers for 2012 are Elena Giannotti (IT/IRE) and Lindsay Clarke (US).

This year the six selected dancers are Jennifer Brown from Limerick, Lisa Tighe from Dublin, Lucia Kickham from Enniscorthy, Orla Shine from Roscommon, Siobhan Ni Dhuinnin from Cork and Brona Jackson from Belfast. Running from the 2nd July to August 26th, the dancers will reside at UL, utilising the state of the art studios and facilities at the Irish World Academy. Accommodation is also provided and due to the success of last year’s pilot project, the programme has been extended from six to eight weeks.

The Step Up Project has been the result of a unique partnership between The Arts Council, University of Limerick and Dance Ireland where they identified a gap in dance education provision in Ireland. The Step Up programme addresses this gap and will enhance the selected dancers’ professional networks by connecting them to the Irish professional contemporary dance community and improving their professional opportunities here in Ireland.
Speaking about the launch of the programme, Step Up Project Director Victoria O’Brien commented “this project is proving to be hugely successful, so much so that we have expanded the programme this year from six to eight weeks and have extended the tour to include a performance at the Firkin Crane in Cork. We are delighted with the calibre of the dancers, choreographers and teachers. It all makes for a very exciting programme.”
Step Up: Dance Project is a partnership initiative between The Arts Council, University of Limerick and Dance Ireland. The culmination of the project will result in the production and performance of two original choreographic works, which will be premiered at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance on August 23, in DanceHouse, Dublin on August 24 & 25 and this year will also now visit the Firkin Crane in Cork on August 26.
Ends.

For further information, please contact:
Victoria O’Brien .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Lisa Hallinan .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

Liz Roche is one of Ireland’s leading choreographers. Artistic Director of Dublin based dance company, The Liz Roche Company, Liz Roche is also choreographer-in-residence at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at University Limerick and is a former recipient of the Peter Darrell Choreographic Award, Bonnie Bird U.K. New Choreography Award and the Jane Snow Award 2002.
Her work for the company has been performed throughout Ireland and internationally, most notably at the South Bank Centre London (UK), Judson Memorial Church New York, Massachusetts International Festival of Art, Capital Nights Festival Liverpool 08 (UK), Edinburgh Fringe Festival (UK), Meet in Beijing Festival (China), Festival De La Nouvelle Danse Uzes and Centre Culturel Irlandais/ CND (France).
She has been commissioned to make work for a number of dance companies including the National Ballet of China, Scottish Dance Theatre, Cois Ceim and Dance Theatre of Ireland. As a dancer, she has worked with world renowned choreographers and companies: Rosemary Butcher (UK), Jodi Melnick (USA), John Jasperse Company (USA), Les Carnets Bagouet, Cathala & Ramalingom, France and Christine Gaigg 2nd Nature, Vienna and has performed at Montpellier Danse 96, Paris Biennale 99, Festival De La Nouvelle Danse 01, Impuls Festival 2002 & 2001 and the Viennale 2003.
In Ireland she has danced with John Scott’s imdt, Cois Ceim Dance Theatre, Dance Theatre of Ireland and Daghdha Dance Company. Liz has also danced in various short films including David Bolger’s Hit & Run and Morleigh Steinberg’s Unsung for RTE’s Dance on The Box.
Her work in opera includes choreographies for Wexford Festival Opera, National Opera of Korea, Rossini Opera Festival. Opernhaus Zurich, Opera de Nice and Opera Ireland. She has also choreographed at the Abbey Theatre, The Gate Theatre, The Ark Children's Theatre, Siren and Landmark Productions.

John Jasperse (US) is Artistic Director/Choreographer of John Jasperse Company. In 1996, Jasperse created Thin Man Dance, Inc., a New York-based not-for-profit organisation. His work has been presented by festivals and presenting organizations in the United States, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Japan, and throughout Europe.
Over recent years, Mr. Jasperse's work has been awarded several prestigious awards both in the United States and internationally, including a New York Dance and Performance (“Bessie”) Award in 2001 in recognition of his body of choreographic work, the 1999 Scripps/ADF Primus-Tamaris Fellowship, the Doris Duke Award (1998), the 1997 Mouson Award by Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt, Germany; three prizes in the 1996 Rencontres Internationales Chorégraphiques de Bagnolet; and the Choreography Prize at the 3rd Suzanne Dellal International Dance Competition (1996) in Tel Aviv, Israel for Excessories.
Jasperse most recent work, Truth, Revised Histories, Wishful Thinking, and Flat Out Lies, is a work for five performers with a commissioned score by composer Hahn Rowe, performed live by a string quartet from the International Contemporary Ensemble. Truth has been commissioned by the Forsythe Company in co-production with the John Jasperse Company with support from the Joyce Theater’s Stephen and Cathy Weinroth Fund for New Work. The work had its world premiere at the Festspielhaus Hellerau in Dresden, Germany in September 2009; its New York premiere was at the Joyce Theater in June 2010; and tours to MCA Chicago (April 2010), REDCAT/CalArts (April 2010), Walker Art Center (May 2010), the Myrna Loy Center (June 2010), PICA’s TBA Festival (September 2010), and Ringling International Arts Festival (October 2010).
Under the umbrella of the Company, Jasperse has created several works for other companies: See Through Knot, commissioned by the Baryshnikov Dance Foundation for White Oak’s Dance Project (2000); The Rest, commissioned by the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, Israel (2000); à double face for the Lyon Opéra Ballet, France (March 2002); missed FIT for The Irish Modern Dance Theater, Dublin, Ireland (October 2002), Highline, as part of the Montana Suite Project for Headwaters Dance Company, Missoula, MT, and most recently Spurts of Activity Before the Emptiness of Late Afternoon for Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, Salt Lake city, UT (2010).
Jasperse's choreographic work has been supported by fellowships from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2003), the Tides Foundation’s Lambent Fellowship in the Arts (2004-2007), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (1998), the National Endowment for the Arts (1992, 1994, 1995-96) and the New York Foundation for the Arts (1988, 199, 2000 and 2010). In addition to numerous commissions for new works, Jasperse’ work and the Company have also been supported by grants from Altria Group, Inc., American Music Center Live Music for Dance Program, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Arts International, Bossak/Heilbron Charitable Foundation, Creative Capital Foundation, Dance Magazine Foundation, Fonds d'Aide à la Production Chorégraphique du Conseil Général de Seine-Saint-Denis (France), Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Greenwall Foundation, The Harkness Foundation for Dance, Heathcote Art Foundation, Jerome Foundation, James E. Robison Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Meet the Composer, the Multi-Arts Production Fund, National Endowment for the Arts, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts BUILD program, New York State Council on the Arts, the Lila Acheson Wallace Theater Fund, established in The New York Community Trust by the founders of The Reader’s Digest Association, and the Trust for Mutual Understanding.
Since 1991, he has regularly taught workshops and classes in the U.S., Europe, Mexico, and Brazil. As a dancer/performer, he began his career working with Lisa Kraus and Dancers (1985-1987), creating original roles in four works, and performing in the US and Europe. In 1988 and 1989, he worked in Belgium with Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker's Rosas, performing in Ottone, Ottone in major festivals and venues through Europe. From 1987 to 1993, he worked with Jennifer Monson, both performing in her work and collaborating on improvisation projects.

Teachers:
Italian born Elena Giannotti currently lives and works in Ireland as an independent artist. She has been working with L’Ensemble Dance-Theatre Company, Virgilio Sieni Dance Company, Yoshiko Chuma, Daghdha Dance Company and Nicole Peisl (The Forsythe Company) amongst others. Since 2002 she intensively collaborates with British choreographer Rosemary Butcher.
Elena started choreographing in 2002. She has been performing in Ireland, UK, Germany, NY, Mexico and Italy with her projects.
Over the last seven years she has been focusing on practice based dance research and improvisation. http://www.jadecnaren.org

Lindsay Clark (US) currently lives and works in New York. She has worked with John Jasperse, Michelle Boule, Jack Ferver, Vanessa Anspaugh, Mud/ Bone Collective and Faye Driscoll, Miguel Guttierez and the Powerful People and Jenny Holzer and Yve Laris Cohen among many others. She is currently working on a collaborative choreography project with Stuart Singer and previously choreographed Sunday Giants, The Delinquency and Other People’s Music, Goodbye Mr. B, practicing love, making desire and Chateaux Roanoke.
Her teaching has incorporated Movement with a strong focus on Ballet Technique at Hollins University, Roanoke, Virginia and with Shen Wei Dance Arts Company as Class Instructor while touring nationally and Internationally. Lindsay also taught open classes at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, New York City as a company member and, in 2007, was Guest Professor of Modern Technique at SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance, Purchase, New York and Guest Professor of Modern Technique at DeSales University, Center Valley, Pennsylvania.

Step Up: Dance Project

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