SpringMoves Dance Festival stands with Apartheid Free Dance. See the statement from the Dance Community Ireland.

SpringMoves

Dance Festival 2025

Celebrate the 7th year of SpringMoves with a dynamic programme of dance performances across Wexford Town!

26 APR

2-3.30pm @ Wexford Town Library
Dance Talks – Intersection
A creative conversation

Free event, booking necessary

A dynamic panel discussion featuring creative voices.  In Partnership with Creatives of Wexford.

 

Guests:

Proud Ngwenya – Creative Producer

Alanna O’Kelly – Visual Artist

Elizabeth Drwal – Theatre & Opera Producer

Orla Bates – Visual Artist

10

MAY

11am-1pm @ Blackbird Cultur Lab

Around the Table

Tickets: €10

Book by email on springmovesdancefestival@gmail.com

Three dance artists share their practice, lunch provided.

Lucia Kickham – dance artist

Katherine O’Malley – dance artist

Liz Roche – choreographer, Luail artistic director

16

MAY

10.30am-5pm @ National Opera House
Where Dance Meets Street

A day long dance & character work masterclass with No Sleep Dance Theatre.

7:30pm @ National Opera House
CHORA

Luail (Ireland’s National Dance Company)

Tickets: €15 – €35 + Facility Fee to Chora

Luail’s Company of Dancers and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, live on stage together, performing an evening of three original dance works by Irish and International
choreographers.

“Don’t Miss It!”

17TH MAY – FESTIVAL DAY

11:30am – 1:00pm @ Wexford Arts Centre
Dance in this Space 

Solos by Lucia Kickham & Maria Nilsson Waller

Short Films screening by Rosemary Lee.

12-3.30pm @ Bullring, Wexford
Dancing with Strangers – From Palestine to Ireland

Instant Dissidence

 
A choreographic act of resistance where four dancers in Gaza offer people in Ireland an embodied experience of their personal story of occupation and genocide. 
 
A dancer on the streets of Ireland with outstretched arms and a t-shirt that says ‘Dance With Me’.

Dance with the stranger and complete the connection.
 
@frompalestinetoireland 
 

1.30pm @ Wexford Arts Centre

Her-acre

Julie Lockett, outdoor (solo)

 

A solo exploring global themes through the microcosm of one woman.

2pm and 3.30pm starting @ Bullring, Wexford 

Eldritch (walkabout street show) 

No Sleep Dance Theatre 

 

Forest creatures take over Wexford with wild, high-energy dance theatre.
“Catch them if you can!”

3:45pm @ Premier Chipper, Wexford
Praying Positions Metamorphosis

Maria Nilsson Waller (solo)

 

An intimate solo dance in a much loved Wexford chipper.

4:30pm @ Sky and the Ground
The Session – Mark Redmond (pipes),
Grace Cuny & Sarah Ryan (dance)

Two dancers & a piper, Irish rhythms & melodies echo around the pub.

Artist lineup

Festival Headline

Luail (Ireland’s National Dance Company)

Luail is a new dance company emerging into an unsettled world. We are working to establish a live set of guiding principles which will develop with the company.

Our core values are to be fearless and inventive, attuned to what matters most to our artists, and joyful in our endeavours with audiences, artists, and company culture. These values guide us in celebrating our diverse society, through dance, within a space of freedom from all forms of oppression, and with a fundamental and steadfast intolerance of apartheid.

www.luail.ie

No Sleep Dance Theatre

No Sleep Dance Theatre was formed in 2019 by Dylan Davies and Jules Young during their time at Hereford Sixth Form College (HSFC). In the subsequent years, they have combined common interests within dance and theatre to create high-energy narrative dance work. They aim to excite and entice audiences of all kinds, using their extensive knowledge of contemporary dance, theatre, acrobatics and aerial circus to create unique outdoor and immersive works.

www.nosleepdancetheatre.com

Maria Nilsson Waller 

A choreographer, dancer and designer. She has been working with dance for over 20 years and created 14 independent productions. She is a sought after teacher, and often collaborates with film and theatre makers in Ireland and abroad. In addition to this she has hosted over 200 workshops to school classes in primary and secondary school, as well as created 4 large scale community-dance projects.

www.marianilssonwaller.com

Lucia Kickham

A contemporary dance artist from and living in Enniscorthy. She is a dance performer, maker, teacher and rehearsal director. Trained in the Netherlands Lucia has worked with companies and artists including Liz Roche Company, Company Philip Connaughton, Junk Ensemble, Maria Nilsson Waller, Laura Murphy, TRASH(NL), Oonagh Kearney and Lore Films.

www.luciakickham.com

Rosemary Lee

An award winning choreographer and filmmaker – has been making dance works in a variety of places for four decades. These include site specific dances in settings ranging from, a disused tyre factory, a cathedral of trees, a vast windswept beach, to the canopies of mature urban trees. She is known for working with professionals and non-professionals, from children to elders, working with soloists to huge casts. Her films have been made for the BBC, galleries and festivals and her installations have toured to a variety of venues nationally and internationally. She is interested in creating an intimacy with the audience through highlighting the humanity of her performers and their close relationship with the environment. She was awarded an OBE for her contribution to dance in 2023.

www.artsadmin.co.uk

Julie Lockett

An independent dance artist and writer based in Cloughjordan Ecovillage. She works interchangeably with the ecovillage land and in the studio as Artist-in-Residence at Instant Dissidence’s Eco Dance Space in the ecovillage when she needs shelter.  She has a certificate in Permaculture Design and uses this as a lens to create her work.  

www.danceireland.ie

Experience the energy and creativity as Wexford comes alive with dance!

Check out our highlights trailer from SpringMoves 2024!

Follow us on our social media channels for exciting news, behind the scenes and updates.

OUR KIND SPONSORS AND PARTNERS

Funded through Wexford County Councils Arts Office – Small Arts Festival Grant Scheme 2025.

Get In Touch

If you’d like to know more, have any questions, feedback or suggestions, please do get in touch!

 

springmovesdancefestival@gmail.com