Irish Arts Center And Baryshnikov Arts Center Present Colin Dunne's CONCERT
By: A.A. Cristi Oct. 01, 2019
Irish Arts Center and Baryshnikov Arts Center join forces again to present the U.S. premiere of Colin Dunne's Concert, in which he takes on the widely influential Irish fiddle player Tommie Potts' iconic-and notoriously choreographically challenging-1972 album The Liffey Banks, armed with an LP, tape recorder, portable speakers, and sheets of flooring. Choreographed and performed by Dunne, and created in collaboration with director Sinéad Rushe and composer and sound designer Mel Mercier, Concert, which The Irish Times, in a five-star review, described as "warm, funny, respectful, and irreverent," comes to Baryshnikov Arts Center November 14-16.
Colin Dunne is a leading traditional Irish dance artist, perhaps best known internationally for his performances and choreography in Riverdance-in which he gave over 900 performances between 1995 and 1998-and Dancing on Dangerous Ground. In recent years, he has immersed himself in the world of contemporary dance, as an independent performer, choreographer, and teacher. He has earned widespread acclaim for works including his Olivier Award-nominated Out of Time, which Irish Arts Center and Baryshnikov Arts Center co-presented in 2011. The New York Times called it "an unprecedented achievement" and "a performance of emotional and intellectual complexity."
Although they hail from different generations and art forms, Potts is something of a kindred spirit to Dunne. He is an icon of Irish traditional music who pushed the envelope of his genre. Although dance has always been integral to trad music, many consider the elusive rhythms of The Liffey Banks unfit for dance. Scotland's The Herald writes that both artists are "itching to revitalize the bone-marrow energies of traditional Irish music and dance by being bold and inventive with the riffs and rhythms they have at their virtuosic fingertips, and feet," adding, "Concert is, then, like a merry-bantering conversation between them." Dunne told The Irish Times, "There's a sense of lonesomeness, of the melancholic, a sense of complexity...He really thought about what he was doing. And I suppose I was slightly seduced by that. But something resonated about his journey and my own too. Something about inner turmoil and battle: with the form, with the community around it, with the sense of being on the outside of something, while at the same time, being really in it."
In addition to Colin Dunne (choreographer and performer), Sinéad Rushe (director) and Mel Mercier (composer and sound designer), the creative team includes Colin Grenfell (lighting designer), Jeffrey Weeter (film designer), Anthony Hanley (sound engineer), Eoin Winning (lighting technician), Patrick Lehane (assistant technician), Hugh Roche-Kelly (production manager), and Maura O'Keeffe (producer).
Performances of Concert take place at Baryshnikov Arts Center (450 West 37th Street, Manhattan) November 14-16 at 7:30pm. Tickets are $25 and can be purchased at bacnyc.org or 866.811.4111. Running time is approximately one hour.
Funding Credits
Concert is presented with support from Culture Ireland-Promoting Irish Arts Worldwide and public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the Mayor's Office and the New York City Council.
Support for Irish Arts Center performing arts programming provided by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, Howard Gilman Foundation, Shubert Foundation, and the Jerome L. Greene Foundation.
Lead support of dance programming at Baryshnikov Arts Center is provided by the Rudolf Nureyev Endowment. Major support for dance programming and activities provided by the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, the New York State Council on the Arts, and Dance/NYC's New York City Dance Rehearsal Space Subsidy Program, made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Leadership support for music programming is provided by the Thompson Family Foundation.
Colin Dunne is a leading figure in the world of traditional Irish dance, perhaps best known internationally for his performances and choreography in Riverdance and Dancing on Dangerous Ground.
He has been forging a new creative path since his time as artist in residence at University of Limerick where he completed an MA in contemporary dance in 2002. Since then, he has worked as an independent performer, choreographer, and teacher. In 2008 he premiered his first solo show, Out of Time, in Glor Theatre, Ennis. The show has since toured internationally at premier festivals and venues in London, New York, Paris, Brazil, and Singapore. Out of Time was nominated for a UK Critics' Circle Award (Best Male Dancer) in 2009, and for a Laurence Olivier Award (Outstanding Achievement in Dance) in 2010. Ensemble works include The Yellow Room (Daghdha Dance Company/Yoshiko Chuma, 2003), and The Bull (Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre/Michael Keegan Dolan, 2005). For The Bull he was nominated for a UK Critics' Circle Dance Award in 2007. Recent collaborations include; Rocio Molina (35 pas à la seconde, Antigel Festival, Geneva), The Irish Chamber Orchestra (The Turn, Fall for Dance Festival, New York), and Boris Charmatz/Musée de la danse (20 Dancers for the xx century, Tate Modern Museum, London). His work as movement director includes; Christ Deliver Us! (Abbey Theatre 2010, directed by Wayne Jordan), and The Risen People (Abbey Theatre 2013, directed by Jimmy Fay). Based in Limerick, he is a regular guest tutor in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in both Traditional and Contemporary dance.
About Irish Arts Center
Irish Arts Center, founded in 1972 and based in Hell's Kitchen, New York City, is a national and international home for artists and audiences of all backgrounds who share a passion for the evolving arts and culture of contemporary Ireland and Irish America. IAC presents, develops, promotes, tours, and distributes work from established and emerging artists and cultural practitioners, providing audiences with emotionally and intellectually transporting experiences-the results of innovation, collaboration, and the authentic celebration of our common humanity.
Steeped in grassroots traditions, with a commitment to inclusion that dates back to our founding, IAC provides education programs and access to the arts for people of all ages and ethnic, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, and an international home for the Irish community to come together and engage with a dynamic global diaspora.
With a commitment to emotionally satisfying, innovative work that brings people of all backgrounds together, Irish Arts Center offers New York audiences a panoramic selection of some of the most dynamic artistic programming from Ireland and Irish America. Recent projects include: Mikel Murfi's acclaimed companion one-man-shows I Hear You and Rejoice and The Man in the Woman's Shoes; THISISPOPBABY's RIOT, a cocktail of theatre-as-protest, spoken word, cabaret and circus (Best Production, Dublin Fringe Festival 2016), at NYU Skirball; Company SJ's acclaimed site specific Beckett in the City; and the Obie-Award winning production of Lippy by Dead Centre; and Rooms, an installation by the Tony-winning Irish writer Enda Walsh, presented in partnership with St. Ann's Warehouse, at Cybert Tire, the site of the future Irish Arts Center.
In 2018, Irish Arts Center broke ground on a landmark new permanent home schedule to open in 2020, including a state of the art contemporary, flexible performance and arts space for the presentation and development of work across a range of disciplines; a second, intimate performance space-the renovated historic Irish Arts Center theatre-optimized for the most intimate live music and conversation, recordings, master classes and special events; classrooms and studio spaces for community education programs in Irish music, dance, language, history, and the humanities; technology to stream and distribute the Irish Arts Center experience on the digital platform; a spacious avenue-facing café lobby that will be a hub for artistic and community hospitality, providing a vibrant setting for conversation and interaction between artists and audiences; and a beautiful new courtyard entrance on 51st Street where the historic Irish Arts Center and the new building meet.
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