This year’s Dublin Dance Festival leans into the immediacy of now, foregrounding bold new Irish work alongside international voices in a programme that feels both urgent and deeply rooted. Running from 30th April to 16th May, the festival threads through the city with performances, installations and events that reflect a world in flux – while insisting on connection, care and collective imagination.
At the Abbey Theatre, Irish choreographer Emma Martin unveils the world premiere of Soft God (14 – 16 May, 7pm). This jagged, shape-shifting work swerves between the mythic and the absurd, conjuring a series of vivid, unstable worlds – a rambling house, a dancehall, a dreamscape – where eight performers sing, stamp, kiss and persist. It’s a defiant act of shared dreaming in a moment when certainty feels increasingly fragile.
Over at Samuel Beckett Theatre, two further world premieres underscore the strength of contemporary Irish dance. Junk Ensemble’s STORM 1.0 (6 – 8 May, 7:30pm) traps its performers inside a structure that can no longer protect them. As wind pushes through every seam and objects refuse to stay put, humour and tenderness emerge in unexpected ways. It’s an unflinching yet hopeful meditation on endurance in a destabilised world.
Also at the Beckett, Luail – Ireland’s National Dance Company presents Mufutau Yusuf’s The Fifth Sun (14 – 16 May, 7:30pm). Drawing on the tradition of Irish keening, this work navigates the grief in response to our planetary crisis through ritual and renewal. Blending dance and lament, it invites audiences to sit with loss while asking what futures we might yet shape, and what kind of ancestors we choose to be.
For one night at Pavilion Theatre, Catherine Young Dance presents Ciseach: An Embodied Manifesto (7 May, 8pm), a richly layered work combining dance, live music and voice. Mining ancestral memory and ecological urgency, it gestures toward reconnection – with land, with history, with each other.
Meanwhile, younger audiences are welcomed into the fold at The Ark, where Moonlight Dream from Maiden Voyage Dance (7 – 10 May) offers a sensory-rich journey for ages 3–6. Gentle, luminous and immersive, it transforms bedtime rituals into a shared, dreamlike experience for little ones and their grown-ups.
Beyond the stage, the festival spills into the city – from Bewley’s Grafton Street to Humanarium at RCSI and the Irish Museum of Modern Art – with outdoor events, club nights and new participative events. This year also sees an expanded Artist Pass programme supported by Tilestyle, supporting eight emerging dance artists through access to performances, masterclasses and industry connections, fostering the next wave of talent while encouraging exchange between local and international practitioners. At its core, DDF2026 champions artists responding to the present moment with clarity, imagination and a refusal to look away – while actively investing in the future of dance.
Explore the full programme and book tickets at dublindancefestival.ie
Lead Image: STORM 1.0 by Junk Ensemble © Fionn McCann
