Colin Dunne - Crossover To Contemporary Dance

Crossover To Contemporary Dance

After an eighteen-month period living in New York, Colin returned to Ireland in 2001 to take a position as dancer-in-residence at the University of Limerick at the invitation of Micheal O’Suilleabhain. In that year he studied for the Masters in Contemporary Dance Performance under the guidance of Mary Nunan, studying with contemporary practitioners such as Mark Baldwin, Wendy Houston, Yoshiko Chuma and Yvonne Rainer. He began focusing on the creation of short solo works, interrogating the space between his traditional dance roots and contemporary arts practice. He presented short solos at The Vail International Dance Festival in Colorado, Jubilee Auditorium in Edmonton and The Queen Elisabeth Hall in London. As part of his final MA he choreographed “Headfoot” for the Daghdha Dance/Yoshiko Chuma production of 10,000 Steps, which closed the first Dublin International Dance Festival.

Since finishing his Masters in 2002 he has sought collaborations with contemporary choreographers in parallel with his own solo creative work. In 2003 he worked again with Yoshiko Chuma in the Daghdha production of The Yellow Room (with dancers Mary Nunan and Olwen Grindly and actor Padraic Delaney). In 2005 he joined Michael Keegan Dolan’s Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre for their production, The Bull, which controversially played for two weeks at The Dublin Theatre Festival, in a role which many saw as a self-parody. His performances in The Bull at the Barbican in 2007 earned him a nomination for a UK Critics Circle National Dance Awards (best male: modern dance). Other work during this period included choreography for The Abbey Theatre (The Shaughraun 2004) and performances with The Irish Chamber Orchestra (Carna, written by Bill Whelan, tour of Ireland in 2004 and Carnegie Hall in 2005). A recording of the chamber piece can be found on the album The Connemara Suite.

Since 2002 Colin has been a regular guest tutor at the University of Limerick on the MA in both Traditional and Contemporary Dance and the BA in Traditional Dance and Music. He has also toured his Masterclass series in the US, Europe and Russia. In 2004 he was invited to teach in Shanghai and Beijing during a two-week residency as part of the China-Ireland festival. Later that year he returned to Birmingham to teach six National Express coach drivers for the Granada TV production, For One Night Only. In 2006 and 2007 he was a regular commentator and judge on the RTE Television show Celebrity Jigs and Reels. He also wrote and presented a four-part radio series for Lyric FM called The Story of Tango (2003).

His first full-length solo show Out of Time premiered at Glór Irish Music Centre in January 2008. This multi-disciplinary work (dance, text, sound technology and archival film footage) saw Dunne return to the question of his traditional dance roots from the perspective of a contemporary practitioner. His ongoing work is supported by The Arts Council/An Comharaile Ealaion; since 2004 he has received 2 bursary awards, a commission award and a project: New Work Award.

He currently lives in County Limerick, Ireland.