Emma Martin/ United Fall Present NIGHT DANCES February & March 2025 National Tour

Emma Martin/ United Fall will present Night Dances, created by Emma Martin and featuring music by Daniel Fox (Gilla Band). The Irish National Tour will run 28th February -29 March. Tour dates are:

Visual, Carlow: February 28 & March 1 www.visualcarlow.ie

Backstage Theatre, Longford: March 5 www.backstage.ie

Blackbox Theatre, Galway: March 8 www.tht.ie

Glór, Ennis: March 12 www.glor.ie

Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick: March 14 www.limetreebelltable.ie

Siamsa Tíre, Tralee: March 19 www.siamsatire.com

An Grianán, Letterkenny: March 24 www.angrianan.com

Pavilion, Dun Laoghaire: March 27 – 29 www.paviliontheatre.ie/events/view/nightdances

Night Dances is a bold series of four dance vignettes created by one of Ireland's most exciting choreographers, Emma Martin, in collaboration with the performers and pounding music of Daniel Fox (Gilla Band). The show played to rapturous response at Dublin Theatre Festival 2021, Edinburgh Fringe 2022 and Dublin Dance Festival 2024, and now goes on national tour February – March 2025.

Night Dances is a series of dances that express the invisible energetic connective tissue that joins us. Created by Emma Martin in collaboration with the dancers Robyn Byrne, Aoife McAtamney, Ryan O'Neill, Jessie Thomson, and Jonas Krämer, with live music by Daniel Fox (Gilla Band). It features a cast of ten intergenerational dancers and a live band of three: Daniel Fox (Gilla Band), Jamie Hyland (Mhaol), and Brian Dillon (Meltybrains); design Katie Davenport, and lighting designer Stephen Dodd.

Night Dances is love letter to dance in 4 parts:

LOST BOY:
A solo for a male dancer. Inspired by the story where Lucifer is God's lover thrown down from heaven with only God's voice echoing “go to hell.” The echo was all he had left to sustain him. Heroic. Mythical. Pitiful. Monstrous. Humble. Soft. Majestic. A swan in an oil slick.

GOD IS A GIRL:
Five young girls with bright eyes, blood pumping together, dancing their hearts out. They whip their limbs and ponytails out into the world like it's their last breath. The most potent of life stages distilled into powerful physicality—all fury, might, and faith. They're the future and they're fearless.

THE RAVER:
“When the soul of a man is born in this country, there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight... I shall try to fly by those nets.” (James Joyce)

RED:
A trio of women. For all the birds, ma's, bitches, hags, wans, slags, babes, frumps. For our mams and grannies. Messy, loud, animal, reckless, violent, beautiful, filthy. Like seeing the virgin Mary swagger by on a white stallion smoking a vape.

Expect a ferociously exhilarating performance of pure dance and live music, eschewing hierarchies of style and form, it is an ode to the body and a visceral, sweaty love letter to dance in all its guises.

Critics have lauded Night Dances for its electrifying performances and innovative choreography: The Irish Times praised it as “raucous, loud, and sweaty… a thrilling hour of relentless dancing and music”, and The Guardian highlighted the performance as “ecstasy on the dancefloor, capturing the essence of losing oneself in the rhythm of the night.”

Tour dates: Visual Carlow (28th Feb +1st March), Backstage Theatre, Longford (5th March), Blackbox Theatre, Galway (8th March), Glór, Ennis (12th March), Lime Tree Theatre, Limerick (14th March), Siamsa Tíre, Tralee (19th March), An Grianán, Letterkenny (24th March), and Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire (27th – 29th March).

To post a comment, you must register and login.