Dance Cork Firkin Crane Reveals its Summer/Autumn 2023 Season

Dance Cork Firkin Crane opens its Summer/Autumn 2023 season with a wide-ranging programme of performances, residencies, classes, and workshops. Running from July–December 2023, the programme presents artists from all over Ireland as well as from France and the U.S.

Dance Cork Firkin Crane’s Executive Artistic Director Laurie Uprichard says: “There’s a buzz in the autumn air reminiscent of going back to school.  It’s a new season and we look forward to being amazed and surprised by the work these magnificent artists are creating for us.  We warmly invite you to have fun, take a chance, and be curious." 

The performance season opens with a presentation of Cork-based choreographer Luke Murphy’s Irish Times Theatre Awards winning, critically acclaimed Volcano. The extraordinary show is a ‘live performance made for the Netflix era’ and invites the audience to view four ‘episodes’ in which two exasperated characters recreate the greatest hits of old lives. Volcano is presented from 8-9 September at the Granary Theatre, in association with Sounds from a Safe Harbour Festival.          

Pitch’d Circus and Street Arts Festival returns to Dance Cork Firkin Crane on 15 September with French Cie Circographie’s Entre Noeuds, a juggling and dance company led by Asaf Mor from Lille, France. The piece is a spectacular work for three performers that asks the question, ‘how does each person's uniqueness translate into collective work?’

In October, John Scott, a trained operatic tenor as well as an award-winning     choreographer, brings his solo Heroes to Cork for the first time, celebrating the mythological characters of German opera with a slightly flippant side glance at their supposed powers. In this uplifting and utterly unique performance, Scott deconstructs the opera form with the visceral passion of a true artist.

November 17-18 sees Justine Doswell premiere Messier 45, exploring the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, as an astronomical phenomenon as well as a relationship function. Messier 45 is Doswell’s first performance piece since her highly acclaimed dyad in 2021.

The season will conclude on 1 December with Angie Smalis and Colin Gee’s All the Relations, a gestural work about small town conflicts. Smalis and Gee’s work has been described as ‘uncannily absorbing’ and features a host of multi-discipline collaborators to create a rich and layered experience for the viewer. The performance is accompanied by Florance, an installation that will run in the Musgrave Gallery from 17 November - 8 December.

In addition to these performances, eight artists plus collaborators will be hosted for CEIST residences, most of which will include informal work-in-progress showings at the end of their residency periods. These showings are free and open to the public. Details can be found on our website. The choreographers and plant scientists who, in conjunction with University College Cork, spent time at Glenkeen Gardens last winter and spring, will be showing the outcomes of their investigations on

14 September. For details and booking information, see dancecorkfirkincrane.ie.

Crane Visual, a visual arts and interdisciplinary social space curated by Dermot Browne, continues with a new public exhibition, Bardo Café, focusing on change, sustainability, and dialogue.

Weekly professional classes and special workshops take place with John Scott, director of Irish Modern Dance Theatre, and with Cie Circographie.

Inclusive Dance Cork, a ground-breaking pilot training programme that began in September 2022, is open to individuals with and without disabilities interested in learning inclusive dance methods. The project will enter its second year in September 2023. Sessions are led by Artistic Director Rhona Coughlan and Guest Facilitators.

          

Dance Cork Firkin Crane would like to acknowledge the support of Cork City Council, the Arts Council and The Community Foundation for Ireland as well as the Friends of Dance Cork Firkin Crane.

For more information and booking see www.dancecorkfirkincrane.ie.

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