Dance, dance wherever you may be. International Dance Festival Ireland returns to
The festival launched its programme last night in Crawdaddy in association with West Coast Cooler. This year the IDFI continues to grow on the success of the previous two festivals showcasing the best in contemporary dance as well as facilitating dance progression with commissions, residencies and critical thought. IDFI is also welcoming back Jérome Bel whose controversial performance at the 2002 saw IDFI being brought to court. Bel will be performing a new dance work as well as giving a public interview in association with Critical Voices 3 exploring topics such as censorship and freedom of expression.
The big news from the night was that the Arts Council Funding is to become annual to begin from 2008, which Catherine Nunes, Artistic Director of the Festival announced at the end of her speech to rapturous applause.
“When we embarked on the journey of creating this Festival it was agreed that it would be prudent to test the water with a trilogy of biennial Festivals. So we began in 2002 and here we are tonight, presenting the last of this trilogy in 2006. It is therefore with great
delight that I can tonight announce that, as a testament to the enormous success of the Festival, it has been given the green light to become an annual event. I am particularly thrilled with this news as I think it is a symbol of the fact that dance has finally and fully taken its place in the Irish cultural landscape,” commented Nunes.
Attendees at the launch included numerous representatives of the Arts Council including chair Olive Braiden who also spoke about the success of the festival and the commitment of all involved as well as Michelle Hoctor, Una McCarthy and Diago Fascati.
Other attendees included John Scott Artistic Director of Irish Modern Dance Theatre;
Liz Roche of Rex Levitates; Willie White of Project; Donal Shiels of St Patrick's Festival; Helen Meany of Critical Voices 3; Tony O'Dailigh; Director Alan Gilsenan; Dermot McLoughlin from Temple Bar Properties and many others.
The success of the festival has been proven with 80% ticket sales in both 2002 and 2004 an outstanding rate for arts events, with organisers predicting a bigger turnout this year.
