Go Behind The Scenes With Dublin Dance Festival

This year’s Dublin Dance Festival offers audiences a unique opportunity to catch behind-the-scenes glimpses and explore the inner worlds and exceptional artistry of celebrated artists and works.

Dancing at Dusk – A moment with Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring by Pina Bausch Foundation, École des Sables and Sadler’s Wells
Mon 24 – Fri 28 May

In Dancing at Dusk – A moment with Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring, Pina Bausch’s iconic 1975 choreography The Rite of Spring is danced in an extraordinary setting, on the beach in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal. Filmed as the world descended into lockdown, it captures the last rehearsal of a specially assembled company of 38 dancers from 14 African countries.

Dancing at Dusk: A moment with Pina Baush’s The Rite of Spring – Pina Bausch Foundation / École des Sables / Sadler’s Wells © Filmproduktion

Impulso by Emilio Belmonte
Available to watch: Mon 24 — Fri 28 May

Impulso is an intimate portrait of revolutionary flamenco star Rocío Molina as she prepares for the biggest challenge of her career: the creation of a new collaborative live art performance at the Chaillot – National Theatre of Dance in Paris. Molina’s avant-garde, extravagant and powerfully raw choreographies fuse traditional flamenco with modern dance styles and impulsos – improvisations that characterise her unique style.

Working On – Gods and Dogs & 14″20′ by Jiří Kylián / Lyon Opera Ballet
Available to watch: Wed 26 — Sun 30 May

The short film Working On – Gods and Dogs & 14″20′ is a chance to go behind the scenes with rehearsals and an interview with living legend and master choreographer Kylián, as he works with the charismatic dancers of Lyon Opera Ballet. Kylián’s works, which have inspired new generations of dancers, combine modernity, technique, and beauty in equal parts.

Here Not Here / ELENIT by Euripides Laskaridis
Available to watch: Wed 26 — Sun 30 May

A favourite from DDF2016, Euripides Laskaridis returns to the Festival with his short film documentary Here Not Here / ELENIT. This contemporary Greek exponent of the theatre of the absurd shares the story of his latest and most ambitious work, currently suspended as lockdowns interrupted all original plans.

Here Not Here / ELENIT – Euripides Laskaridis

Form(s) of Life from Eric Minh Cuong Castaing / Shonen
Available to watch: Tue 25 May — Sat 5 June

In the DDF commission Form(s) of Life, dancers and people with mobility loss come together to create an intimate and collective choreography in three short films. Featuring a former dancer, a former boxer and the dancers from Shonen, this exploration of mobility loss and the necessity of gestures to connect and communicate challenges our contemporary notion of disabled or virtuosic bodies.

Train Swirl – Étude (club version) from Cassiel Gaube
Available to watch: Tue 25 May — Sat 5 June

DDF commission Farmer Train Swirl – Étude (club version) is a video of solo work based on Gaube’s study of House dance, a style born in the clubs of Chicago and New York in the early eighties – a synthesis of hip hop, salsa, Rasta and tap dance. Gaube has immersed himself in House dance, learning and practicing in the lively club scenes of Paris and New York. The results of his research can be sampled in this unique and playful filmed experience.

Farmer Train Swirl – Étude (club version) – Cassiel Gaube © Boris Bruegel

Breathing by Hiroshi Sugimoto / Aurélie Dupont
Available to watch: Thu 27 May — Mon 7 June

Breathing from contemporary artist Hiroshi Sugimoto and Artistic Director of the Paris Opera Ballet Aurélie Dupont is a mesmerising short film. With the glass roof of Sugimoto’s Odawara Art Foundation as the stage, Dupont performs the solo Ekstasis, a work choreographed by Martha Graham in 1933, dancing at daybreak, from a vantage point high above the busy world below, as if floating between sky and sea.