Michael Seaver

2 weeks ago | irishtimes.com | Michael Seaver

When Luail’s artistic director, Liz Roche, spoke to The Irish Times last August she was in the midst of what she jokingly referred to as kicking the company into existence. The choreographer, already with a successful company of her own, had won the tender to create an all-island dance company with an Arts Council guarantee of €5 million in funding over three years. Top of her to-do list were finding a studio and offices and auditioning dancers to form the full-time core of the company.

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Michael Seaver

Begin AnywhereSpace Upstairs, Project Arts Centre, Dublin★★★★☆Since Merce Cunningham’s death, in 2009, the choreographer’s trust has allowed other dance companies to license performances of his work, but under strict conditions and usually under the watchful scrutiny of one of his former dancers.

2 months ago | irishtimes.com | Michael Seaver

Building community through dance has been a constant goal for Tara Brandel. The choreographer lives in Ballydehob, in west Co Cork, and her dances are rooted in the area and have grown around the people who inhabit it. In a more global sense, she believes that communities are the answer to climate change, the fundamental existential problem facing society today. She is not alone in these views. Many environmental scientists agree.

Feb 8, 2025 | irishtimes.com | Michael Seaver

Close collaborators in the past, the composer Mel Mercier and the choreographer John Scott have parted ways for their latest project, Begin Anywhere. Not because of any disagreement, but because they are honouring their personal and artistic connections with John Cage and Merce Cunningham. The late American pair famously worked independently when collaborating: composer Cage and choreographer Cunningham did not discuss their artistic ideas before or during the act of creation.

Sep 14, 2024 | irishtimes.com | Michael Seaver

Hyperphysical: A Double BillLir Academy, Dublin★★★★★Endurance-based dances can be one dimensional: dancers pushed to physical limits while audiences marvel at their stamina and applaud the sweat. Often the underlying aesthetics involve dehumanising the body and presenting dancers as abstract physical objects whirring around the stage. The Future Is on the Way, by the New York choreographer Abby Zbikowski, is fascinatingly different. Punishingly relentless in its physicality, it spurns abstraction.