WORKS
Yard Duets
YARD DUETS is a colourful affair of joyful dances and characterful routines set to a medley of classic music of all styles.
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YARD DUETS can be presented outdoors in a courtyard, garden area or similar as appropriate to each care home. Designed for people to watch through a window or at a distance, the performance offers plenty of opportunity for everyone, whether seated or standing, to join in or sing along and dance as desired.​
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Commissioned by Limerick Arts Office, Dance Limerick & Philippa Donnellan
County Kerry touring supported by Kerry County Arts Office & Catherine Young Dance
The Competition
The Competition explores the exhilarating highs of winning and the crushing blows of losing.
The Competition looks inside the competitive world of Irish Dance during which 4 dancers and 2 musicians navigate their way through 5 rounds of intense competition to battle it out to win your vote using our 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.
Created in 2021 with an AC bursary and project award.
Supported by Dance Limerick & Town Hall Theatre Galway.
IN LiMBO
IN LiMBO Sitting in-between the two worlds of traditional and contemporary, IN LiMBO takes a journey where few have gone within Irish step dancing. The four live musicians and ensemble of six dancers have taken the basics of what makes the 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 though they already knew. The creative life of an Irish dancer is relatively undeveloped past competition and show dancing – Kristyn Fontanella believes that many Irish dancers shy away from questioning the established norms of their dance form.
The questions the company has asked and the ideas they explore through this piece are vital to the ongoing life and development of traditional Irish dance.
Arts Council Funded 2016-18 creation at Dance Limerick 2018. Premier at FC/Dance Cork and Dance Limerick 2020 - 7 venue national tour to Dunamaise, An Grianan, glór, Town Hall Theatre Galway, Siamsa Tire, The Source, Project Arts Centre.
Performers: Sarah Fennell, James Greenan, Laura Lundy, Yuki Nomiya
Musicians: Paddy Kiernan, Dale McKay
Mc/Dramaturg: Bryan Quinn
Lighting Design & Operation: Susan Collins
Live Video Production: Lucy Dawson. Shane Vaughan
Producer: Jane Hanberry
Creative Consultant: Johnathan Tweedie
Costume Designer & Maker: Cherie White
Plurabelle
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 and shapes inspired by the fall of rain on her body and 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.
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A Hope it Rains | Soineann nó Doineann commission for
Galway 2020, European Capital of Culture
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córagrafaí & rinceoir | choreographer & performer:
Kristyn Fontanella
stiúrthóir | director: Kristyn Fontanella
ceamadóireacht | camera: Kristyn Fontanella
iriseoir | editor: Shane Vaughan
coimeádaí | curator: Ríonach Ní Néill
producer | léiritheoir: Ciotóg
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www.hopeitrains.ie
www.galway2020.ie
As We Know It
As We Know It is a frank and open conversation between two Irish dancers.
The aim of this joint practice is to debunk certain attitudes, which exist in the realms of the tradition. It is the dancers’ view that a well-recognized division exists regarding the different forms of Irish dance. Irish dancers perceive other Irish dancers to be different, from another world - yet all defined under the same title.
HUP
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 Fontanella uses this traditional Irish music she has grown accustomed to to express it through the body - not just the feet.
How does something so familiar look when using the unfamiliar?​
