The bank holiday weekend gave Dubliners the long-awaited chance to don their sunglasses, head outside and make the most of what this city has to offer. This included a busy day with Dublin Dance Festival which runs from 2-20 May.
The Festival lived up to expectations of providing something for everyone, with a playful afternoon of family fun in Meeting House Square, an electric battle of the best street dancers and of course, the closing night of Akram Khan’s Giselle which was met with standing ovations at every performance.
Emma O’Kane’s A Life of Play (part of Bealtaine @ Temple Bar and presented in partnership with CoisCéim BORADREACH and Dublin Dance Festival) created a playground for the imagination with games, music, movement and stories. exploring the power of dance and play as a way for generations to connect.
While this group enjoyed the outdoors, the Top 8 Street Dance Battle pre-selection heats were well underway, with finalists taking to the stage in Meeting House Square that evening. Spins, flares, body isolations and gravity-defying flips had the audience whistling and cheering for their favourites as the international panel of judges chose the 2018 Top8 champions.
Sunday 6 also saw the closing night of Akram Khan’s Giselle which wowed Dublin audiences and has already received 5-star reviews.
STILL TO COME:
But if you missed these events, don’t worry. Take a look at some of the Festival highlights this coming week:
- A guide through the seven mortal sins in And so you see… created by controversial choreographer and social commentator Robyn Orlin in partnership with Albert Khoza, a flamboyant young performer from Soweto
- Following the success of the captivating Elvedon at DDF2017, Greek choreographer Christos Papadopoulos returns with the meditative and hypnotic universe of Ion
- At the Science Gallery, Dancing Artificial Intelligence (DAI) – a robot who is an Artificial Intelligence artist, learning how to dance day after day
- A special programme at IMMA of the work of Yvonne Rainer, one of the most influential American artists of the last 50 years, including some of her iconic early dance works
- (b)reaching stillness in which choreographer Lea Moro takes Baroque still life painting as a starting point, creating a cycle of collapse and resurrection
- The Dance on Film programme with Akram Khan‘s Can We Live With Robots? and Bobbi Jo Hart‘s Rebels on Pointe which tells the story of the all-male comic ballet company Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo
- A chance to see new Irish dance work from artists Ruairí Donovan, Iseli-Chiodi Dance Company and Jessie Keenan in the First Looks programme
- Junk Ensemble‘s powerful new work Dolores, inspired by Nabokov’s novel Lolita, told from the perspective of the once-silenced girl, and featuring a cast of acclaimed performers including Mikel Murfi and Amanda Coogan.
To find out more and to see the full Festival line-up, visit www.dublindancefestival.ie
