Shawbrook will be hosting Circilár’s first Module 1 course.

Circilár is a new home for contemporary circus arts in the heart of Ireland. Founded by Aoife Raleigh and Tony Mahon, our mission is simple:to support and elevate the next generation of circus artists through world-class training, community, and creativity.

Expert-led training in theatre, dance, conditioning, and flexibility.

1-on-1 mentorship in your primary circus discipline.

Career development guidance from auditions to project building.

224 hours of training plus additional self-practice space.
“We believe circus is more than an art form — it’s a powerful way to express, connect, and transform. With Circilár, we’re building a space where emerging and professional circus artists can find the skills, confidence, and pathways needed to build a sustainable career.”

Dylan will work on a 10-minute solo dance work devised from Keeping Track, a poetry collection by Rob King. The piece explores the surreal and physical experience of humanity sinking — of keeping one’s head above as time, history, and memory pass and settle like peat.

Bog Ballet draws from both ballet and contemporary dance techniques, combined with the embodied resistance of moving through wet, uneven terrain. The project seeks to establish a new dance language called Bog — a movement form that grows from the act of sinking, balancing poise with struggle, grace with gravity. “During the residency, I will explore how the body adapts to and learns from natural surfaces, creating choreographic material that reflects the physical sensation of the bog. I will collaborate with Brian F. Devaney, musician and performer, to create an original soundscape that merges distorted Irish folk motifs, foley recordings of bog environments, and classical undertones. Together, we aim to craft a sound world that moves in tandem with the choreography — an auditory landscape of breath, mud, and memory.”

“We plan to create our new production ‘STORM 1.0' ahead of our premiere at Dublin Dance Festival in May 2026.

We will be working with two dancers - to create a poignant and humourous dance theatre work about survival and environmental change.

STORM 1.0 is set in an apocolyptic wasteland with themes of sustainability, renewal, hope, survival, solidarity, and revolt.

As it will only be the second time the dancers meet, we would love them to be in an environment where they can get to know each other in the evening after rehearsals. Shawbrook Creative Space is the perfect place for this.”

Free Sharing April 9th at 7.00pm in the Big Studio. Everyone Welcome!

“Throughout this residency we will begin the first off-page development of our new physical theatre work ‘One More Time’.

We want to build on the ideas of memory loss/fragmentation and shifting realities which all live under the umbrella of the story’s underlying theme of dementia. Our story is inspired by, but not limited to, the first-hand lived experience of Anaïs’ father and family. We will use this time at Shawbrook to unveil what our movement language and style looks like for the show whilst being guided by these strong themes to frame some scenes involving characters, text, partnering and emotional states/physicalities.”

“ I specialise in site-responsive composition, audience circulation, and low-tech, high-impact formats that read clearly for mixed audiences.

With DEATH RALLY, I am turning towards a smaller, studio-rooted language that explores how mortality awareness can reorganise bodies together. The work examines how we gather, rupture, and repair. The title signals a paradox: a rally for life that acknowledges fragility and defiance in the same breath. The research will develop score-based tools. These include breath, weight, and proximity tasks, gather and release cues, timing and stillness. The aim is to hold intensity without text while safeguarding emotional wellbeing.

For this phase I will collaborate in studio with three performers, and remotely with a sound artist to shape the sonic world alongside the choreographic score.”

During their residency, they will explore our new project 'Beautiful Future'.

Inspired by the book 'How to Fall in Love with the Future' by Rob Hopkins, the work will argue for the power of imagination in combating environmental dread and anxiety... If we dare to imagine a joyful, liveable future together, we’ll find the courage, and the practical steps, to start building it today.

Set around a rotating 'sun dial' set, the project will see two dancers (Chris Radford and Sara Macqueen) and musician (Azizi Cole), explore a positive approach to the climate emergency through envisaging how much better and more beautiful our world can be, if we can change our behaviours.

The work will draw on significant research with young people from across the UK, exploring their responses to the climate emergency and creative exploration of the book. They will use their responses and accounts to create the narrative of the show.

“At Shawbrook, Kelly Keesing and collaborators will continue the development of ‘Speak to Me’, a dance theatre work exploring memory, perception, and the fragile space between inner and outer worlds.

Set within a shared domestic environment, the work moves through shifting states of connection, emotional proximity, disorientation, and return. Bodies move together, fragment, dissolve, and reappear.

Through movement research and choreographic experimentation, the residency will focus on uncovering the physical language and emotional atmosphere of the work, whilst continuing to shape its visual world through light, space, and cinematic imagery.”

During her residency at Shawbrook, choreographer Caitlin Barrett will further develop Comrades in the Dark, a contemporary dance work inspired by the poetry and writings of Bobby Sands and the 1981 Irish hunger strike.

Originally created as a 40-minute ensemble piece for four male dancers, the residency will focus on expanding the work into a full-length production through the development of new choreography, live music, and spoken text.

Working with dancers, musicians, and creative collaborators, the residency will explore themes of identity, resistance, and resilience, creating a powerful and reflective performance experience rooted in Irish history and storytelling.

During their residency at Shawbrook, James Grennan and Alex O’Neill will continue developing a collaborative performance work that brings together percussive Irish dance, contemporary movement, hip-hop, and Krump.

Building on a creative partnership that began in 2023, the residency will explore the natural rhythm and connection between their practices through improvisation, movement research, and live performance experimentation. Supported by a recent Agility Award, the project will expand beyond a duet format by introducing additional performers and musicians into the process.

The residency will focus on shaping the work into a longer-form live production, deepening the dialogue between movement, rhythm, sound, and shared physical language.

Deirdre Griffin is an Irish dance artist and choreographer working across dance theatre, circus and cabaret. She writes and directs performance under the name HEADONBODY creating works characterised by wild absurdity and high physicality. As a performer she has toured extensively in Ireland, UK and internationally.

DOTS is an exciting outdoor festival performance that celebrates community through dance, song, and shared storytelling. It is both a response to a world that is moving ever further away from the natural cycles of life and a reminder of the enduring connections between people, nature, and tradition.

Inspired by the tragic legend of Deirdre of the Sorrows, DOTS explores the characters and choices that lead to this ancient tale's heartbreaking conclusion. Through movement, music, and spectacle, the production asks why these stories continue to resonate and what they can teach us in a world still marked by conflict, loss, and tragedy.

Blending powerful movement, live music, and striking visual imagery, DOTS invites audiences to reconnect with timeless stories that continue to resonate in today's ever-changing world.

Sharing: 9th July at 4.30pm

During her residency at Shawbrook, Catherine Young will begin the early development of a new work, Lions Arising in our Minds, exploring memory, vulnerability, resilience, and the body’s ability to retain what the mind cannot.

A long-time creative home for Catherine Young Dance, Shawbrook will provide the space for an initial devising process focused on dramaturgy, structure, movement, and sound. Working alongside collaborators including sound designer Alan Kelly, Music Director Martin Shaner, dramaturg Hanna Slattne, and dancers, the residency will investigate two possible directions for the piece — a trio featuring three generations of women, or a solo work centred on one woman’s story.

This early-stage residency will help shape the core ideas and creative direction of the work as it continues to develop throughout 2026.

During his residency at Shawbrook, Luke Murphy will develop Ingenium, a new performance work for three performers combining text, movement, and visual imagery.

Set in a surreal world where ideas are endlessly produced and repackaged, the work follows two collaborators navigating the disintegration of a long-standing working relationship under the pressure of ambition, memory, and expectation. Blending dark humour with psychological tension, Ingenium explores creativity, commodification, and the relentless pursuit of potential.

Building on previous writing periods and studio residencies, Luke will use the residency at Shawbrook to stage and test the first section of the work, exploring the relationship between script, choreography, timing, and performance structure as the project moves toward its next phase of development.

During her residency at Shawbrook, Lucie Labadie will continue developing More than the Birth of a Child, a new dance theatre work exploring birth as a ritual of transformation, identity, and ancestral memory.

Supported by an Arts Council Research and Development Award, the project brings together personal stories and shared experiences of motherhood through movement, theatre, music, and collaborative research. Working alongside composer Katy Bennett, dancer Pagan Hunt, actor Hannah Kimpton, and a circle of women whose lived experiences inform the piece, the residency will focus on developing the dramaturgy and movement language of the work.

Following a previous residency at Shawbrook for Let it Bleed! Lucie and her collaborators return to the space to further shape the production in preparation for future touring and public sharing.

Railway Womb, Wandering Spine is a choreographic work exploring the entanglement of gender, hysteria, and societal collapse through movement, sound, voice, and immersive performance. Expanding from an earlier solo work, the project draws on historical ideas of “wandering womb” and “railway spine” to examine how hysteria has been understood through gender, trauma, labour, and the body.

Developed through collaboration between dancer and sound designer, the work combines choreography, theatricality, audience interaction, sound, and vocal experimentation to explore instability, transformation, and perception. Breath, strain, excess, and vocal fracture become choreographic and sonic tools that extend the body into space and towards the audience.

The residency will support the continued development of the work’s movement language, dramaturgy, and immersive performance structure, investigating how states of collapse, queerness, and hysteria can generate new relational and performative forms.

In the “More than Human World”, complexity arises from simple interactions between many sentient beings (movers). Unlike an orchestra which is led by a conductor, emergent systems (in nature) are leaderless systems which are more than the sum of their parts.

They will use this residency as a laboratory for exploring “emergence” as both method and subject. We are an artist collective with primarily movement-based practices (contemporary dance), some also working with sound and music. We will work co-creatively and envisage artistic outcomes to emerge from within the group in response to the environment. Our process combines somatic approaches, improvisation scores inspired by the ecological sciences, environmental listening, and the specific environment of Shawbrook.

Beginning from individual curiosities and interests, we allow shared structures to unfold co-creatively, mirroring the dynamics of “emergence” we observe in nature. For the final sharing, we will “harvest” our findings, condense them into a final set of improvisation scores which we will then share in a performative setting with an audience. Members of the collective: Neena Dhillon, Kristin Weichen Wong, Sky Su, Rasa Kazenaite.

During her residency at Shawbrook, Nicola Moran will research and develop a new ground-based trio work exploring connection, resistance, and collective motion through harness and line work.

Working collaboratively with two dancers, the residency will investigate how bodies connected through harnesses and lines can create shifting physical relationships through contact, counterbalance, tension, and shared momentum. Through structured improvisation and physical experimentation, the project will explore themes of support, restriction, freedom, and surrender.

This process-led residency will provide dedicated studio time to test movement systems, develop choreographic material, and uncover the physical and dramaturgical possibilities of the work as it evolves toward a new performance piece.