Masterclass with Oona Doherty

Date:

Fri 16 May 2025

Time:

10:30 - 12:30

Venue:

DanceHouse

Admission:

€12

Level:

Professionals and Advanced students

Workshop Description

Join Oona Doherty for an immersive workshop where you will explore physical states, repertoire and themes from the show Specky Clark.

Grief;

Concrete;

Weather in the body (wind & rain);

Trying to let go through rage.

Expect a dynamic and transformative experience that reflects Oona’s bold artistic vision.

BOOK ONLINE HERE

About Oona Doherty

Oona Doherty was born in 1986 in London. She moved to Belfast when she was 10. She studied at St Louise’s comprehensive college in Belfast, The London School of Contemporary Dance, University of Ulster and LABAN London. From 2010 she performed with various companies, including: TRASH (NL), Abattoir Fermé (BE), Veronika Riz (IT), Emma Martin/United Fall (ROI), Enda Walsh & Landmark Productions (ROI).

She created her first solo work Hope Hunt and the Ascension into Lazarus in 2016. With this performance, she was awarded the “Tiger Dublin Fringe Festival Best Performer Award” in 2016 and the winner of the “Total Theatre Dance Award” at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2017 and the 1st Audience place and judged 1st place at Reconnaissance in Grenoble in 2017.

In 2017, she created Hard to be Soft – A Belfast Prayer, collaborating with seminal DJ and composer David Holmes, which was voted "No. 1 British dance performance of 2019" by the Guardian. In 2019, she created Lady Magma: The Birth of a Cult, again collaborating with David Holmes. Her 2022 creation Navy Blue is a work 12 dancers with music by Sergei Rachmaninov and original creation by groundbreaking Dj Jamie xx. In 2023/24, she choreographed a piece for London's National Youth Dance Company, The Wall, for 32 young dancers. With music and text collaboration with Luca Truffarelli, the cast and Turner Prize winner Mark Lecky.

In 2024 Oona created a new dance theatre work, Specky Clark, with music by Mercury prize winners LANKUM and collaborative composer Maxime Fraisse, and guidance from seminal playwright Enda Walsh. Oona Doherty was one of the Aerowaves 2017 selected artists, an Associate Artist at Maison de la Danse de Lyon (FR) in 2017/18, Dublin Dance Festival Artist in Residence in 2020–2022 and a Big Pulse Dance Alliance Artist 2021–24. Oona was awarded the Venice Biennale Silver Lion in 2021, Ballet Preljocaj artist in residence 2024/25, and in 2024 she became one of Sadler’s Wells Associates.

This workshop is in partnership with Dublin Dance Festival.