HATCH ANNOUNCEMENT 2024
We are pleased to announce the recipients of the 2024 Dance Ireland HATCH Awards.
HATCH is a flagship award within our programme, which aims to encourage ambition, experimentation, and creative breathing space. How the award has evolved over the past few years has also supported artists to connect with each other, nationally and internationally, encouraging a strong networked sector for professional dance in Ireland. – Sheila Creevey, CEO, Dance Ireland
The awards focus on investing in time for artists to think, reflect on and reimagine their creative processes, make connections with other artists; and will provide an enhanced opportunity for one dance artist to experiment, collaborate, and seed and develop a new work. There are three strands to the Hatch Awards: Hatch Mentoring Award, Hatch Artistic Research Award and Hatch Creation Award. Seven dance artists were awarded this year:
Hatch Mentoring Award
Alexandra Vostokova
"I would like to commit to a deep dialogue full of reflection on aspects of dance-making that go beyond the studio such as: application writing, administration, my creative process, collaboration and production navigation. In short, looking at all the different characteristics of my career and giving them a bit of love and attention under the guidance of an established artist, their insight hopefully instilling confidence as I navigate my journey forward."
Instagram handle: @alexandeiira
Read more about Alex HERE
Nóra Fay
"I have been fortunate to be able to tour my latest works in festivals around Europe and my latest piece ‘Ham Sandwiches and Discipline,’ is currently touring internationally. Up until this point I have been managing to carve my way through each opportunity but now I am now feeling the urge to spend time in exploring how I navigate the working field. I feel compelled to gain a better understanding in how to build a project from concept, funding, creation period, performance, and touring. The process of how this is done often seems to be shrouded in mystery. Therefore, what I would most like to gain from this award would be how to operate as a dance artist in the working field. Of course, this varies with each individual but the more opportunity I must learn from others the more I can flesh out my path and make my career and practice more sustainable and long lasting. The HATCH award can grant me the tools to do this by having the incredible opportunity to exchange with others."
Instagram handle: @noranianluainfay
Read more about Nóra HERE
Tara-Marie Angeline Bredemeier
"After receiving the award I would like to further expand and work on my solo piece."
Instagram handle: @tara.m.byr
Read more about Tara HERE
Hatch Artistic Research Award
Laura Murphy
"Although I am actively working in dance, I don't always have time or energy to focus and care for my own body, my own practice. With no specific outcomes, I have specifically chosen activities that will nourish and enrich my dance practice. Hatch 2024 is time for me to consciously give way for change, and to return to my dance."
Read more about Laura HERE
Fearghus Ó Conchúir
"The award will allow time for myself and a group of collaborators to discuss and test the aesthetics, ethics and practicalities of connecting live performances from different parts of the world through digital mediation. Why? I have long been ambitious for dance and used my work to seek ways for dance to have an impact beyond the stage. This research into digital mediation to connect live performance is for me a necessary response to the climate emergency, trying to find beautiful and meaningful ways to collaborate across cultures and international experience without always moving many bodies on planes around the globe. It will be a research into how to relate, create and extend in a sustainable way."
Read more about Fearghus HERE
Credit Damien Boisson-Berçu
Tara Bandel
"With this HATCH award I want to research and identify what burlesque/cabaret/drag communities exist in Ireland, talk to people who work in these areas, and identify and attend workshops and performances. I plan to start working on a new multidisciplinary solo show ‘Missing’ later this year, which looks at the pivotal queer women whose voices and stories have been erased from history. ‘Missing’ will include multiple layers of drag and elements of burlesque, and this HATCH award will give me the space and time to develop new skills in these areas, and to focus on my own solo queer multidisciplinary work."
Read more about Tara HERE
Hatch Creation Award
Eileen Mcclory
"I am delighted to receive the HATCH Creation Award this year, which I will use to further develop Nemesis—A Movement Opera. A cross-art collaboration with poet Maria McManus and composer Dr Keith Acheson which explores themes of demagoguery, political deceit, and global urgency through an exciting partnership of dancers and singers sharing the stage in both narrative and physical storytelling."
Read more about Eileen HERE