FONTANELLA DANCE COMPANY - KRISTYN FONTANELLA

Fontanella Dance Company has created original full-scale productions for both live theatre and online recorded media. Kristyn also works as a consultant and producer for several external dance companies and choreographers, including commisions from companies both in Ireland and abroad.

Click on the show title for full production details

THE COMPETITION

2021- Dance Limerick, Riverfest & Town Hall Theatre

The Competition is an innovative exploration of competitive Irish dance feiseanna and explores the exhilarating highs of winning and the crushing blows of losing.

During this light-hearted look inside the competitive world of Irish Dance, 4 dancers and 2 musicians will navigate their way through 5 rounds of intense rivalry and battle it out to win your vote using an online voting system. Your decision as an audience member will have a real-time effect on every moment in the show and each night will be truly unique.

2020 - Irish National Tour
2018 - Premier performance (Firkin Crane Theatre, Cork)

Sitting in-between the two worlds of traditional and contemporary, IN LiMBO takes a journey where few have gone within Irish step dancing. Four live musicians and an ensemble of six dancers have taken the basics of what makes this tradition so attractive and translated it into a new but still recognizable language of music and dance. This production introduces the audience to another possibility within a dance form that they thought they already knew.

PLURABELLE

**A Hope it Rains commission for Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture**

What is the relationship between traditional Irish dance and traditional Irish weather? Kristyn Fontanella draws from her knowledge of traditional dance to make new rhythmical patterns & shapes inspired by the fall of rain on her body & the South Galway landscape. Listening to the raindrops, to the wind. Listening to what is happening around to hear what is happening within. Finding new movement patterns from playing in puddles where raindrops fell.

HUP

2019 - Butternights 2 (Firkin Crane Theatre, Cork)
2017 - Laois Dance Platform

Irish dancers sometimes take the music they dance to for granted. They anticipate the chords, tune change, and when the beat drops in – so how can we change this and make it new and unexpected? Kristyn uses this traditional Irish music she has grown accustomed to and expresses it through the body not just the feet. How does something so familiar look when using the unfamiliar?

AS WE KNOW IT

2018 - Marseille New Danse Festival
2017 - Dublin Dance Festival
2016 - DRFI Conference, New York City
Echo Echo Dance Platform, Derry
Tanzmesse, Dusseldorf

As We Know It takes the form of a frank conversation between a traditional Irish step dancer and a sean-nós dancer – sean-nós being an improvisational form of Irish dancing. They challenge each other's perceptions while also presenting a new movement dialogue unique to both. Sibéal Davitt & Kristyn Fontanella try to find a mutual language, examining stereotypes and debunking attitudes in traditional Irish dance.