Come and experience a unique evening of dance and community. Following on from the success of last year’s inaugural event, this an evening for dance, theatre and music lovers alike to see fresh new work from Ireland’s up and coming makers. A Scratch Night is an opportunity for artists to put their ideas to the test in front of an audience and receive feedback. Here, four dance artists and companies from around Ireland have been selected to present a short excerpt of their new work-in-progress. Please note that adult themes may be explored in the work. The exciting and eclectic programme for the night is:
Jyoti Soni with Dystopia
This work emerges from generational memory carried in women’s bodies, voices, and silences. It draws from the mythology of Draupadi, torn apart by power yet standing as an eternal witness of defiance. Her layers of rage, vulnerability, and resilience connect with modern women navigating oppression and expectation.
The piece does not retell her story but reimagines it in a dystopian present where women’s identities are fragmented and controlled, yet never erased. Memory becomes resistance, myth becomes a mirror, and each gesture becomes testimony. Through movement and imagery, the work confronts the violence of being seen and unseen while reclaiming space for the female voice and choice.
It is a feminist offering, both personal and collective, an act of remembering, questioning, and reimagining what it means to survive and to speak. Music by Raj Shekhar.
Awenwoven with A Body in Internal Motion
Awenwoven is a contemporary dance collective led by artist and choreographer Josué Reis. Performed by Josué Reis, Ikaro Cavalcanti and Ana Talita Lima, ABIIM (A Body in Internal Motion) is a dance work-in-progress that explores the journey of a body through memory, resilience, and transformation. Drawing on Josué Reis’ Afro-Brazilian roots and his experience as a migrant artist in Ireland, the piece fuses urban dance languages (Krump, funk/passinho, hip hop) with contemporary dance theatre.
Aoibhinn O’Dea with The Foot of the Lungs
This piece builds on Aoibhinn’s ongoing interest in the dialogical relationship between sound and movement. Aoibhinn uses improvisational movement to create soundscapes through the body, exploring themes of connection and community, with breath as a central thread linking the internal body to the external world.
Anne Rowe and Carla Adan Cerezuela with Buit Ple D’absència (Void Full of Absence)
This project emerges from the experience of absence as a creative trigger. Anne and Carla are interested in thinking of absence not as a passive void, but as an inhabited space: the place left behind by what is no longer there, exploring how memory, nostalgia and longing carry weight, density and presence. Through the body they seek to materialize the invisible space that is missing, to give it volume and texture, and to explore how this “emptiness” can be transformed into a creative force.
This event is part of Rachel Ní Bhraonáin’s 2025 Dance Artist Residency at Garter Lane Arts Centre, supported by The Arts Council and Waterford City and County Council.
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