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RTÉ News
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Luail steps up - Ireland's national dance theatre takes flight
Liz Roche, Artistic Director of Luail, Ireland's all-island dance company, talks about the beginnings of the company, as it prepares to make its highly anticipated debut this May with Chora, a triple bill of new dance works. Luail takes its name from an ancient Irish word that evokes movement, energy, and impulse. Soft in sound—pronounced 'loo-il'—it also carries a deeper resonance, describing an internal, almost anatomical motion, much like the movement of the nervous system. We embrace these layered meanings, drawing from our rich culture to shape our vision: for dance to be known and celebrated across the island of Ireland and to strengthen our dance ecosystem. In 2024, the Arts Council Insights survey revealed that just 2% of the population attend dance performances. While dance participation is high in private or commercial settings, a lack of investment in dance education - unlike other art forms such as music and drama - has created social and spatial barriers. Without early exposure to dance, it's difficult to cultivate a life-long appreciation for the art form. Listen: RTÉ Arena celebrate the launch of Luail Additionally, those aspiring to have a career in dance have often faced a lack of clear pathways to support their journey. This gap in support was highlighted as a critical need by the Arts Council's Dance Policy—Advancing Dance 2022-2025, which called for the establishment of a national, all-island dance company to create stable careers for dance artists, present ambitious work, revive key repertoire, and strengthen connections across the dance community. Liz Roche Company and foundational partners at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, University of Limerick and Maiden Voyage Dance in Belfast, were awarded the opportunity and honour to create Luail — Ireland's National Dance Company. Together, we have been shaping this new national, all-island dance company, developing a programme of ambitious dance works and special projects that build on the incredible work already being done in the sector. Our artistic programme is forging strong connections between traditions, artists and communities, through the creation of bold, high-quality, collaborative works across various disciplines, scales, languages and performance spaces. Our work brings people together locally and internationally, driven by a fearless, inventive spirit, deep artist connection, and shared joy. The work celebrates the idea of shared spaces, both physical and emotional, and explores what they mean in our lives today. With our foundational partners we are establishing clear career pathways for dancers, and now for the first time, dancers on the island can follow a path from undergraduate to postgraduate studies in contemporary dance at the Irish World Academy, UL, into a professional national company through two MA dance placements with the Luail ensemble. After just over a year of building our new Luail team, company of dancers, and programme that has engaged with over 120 artists across disciplines through research & development and commissioning dance artists to create within and for their communities—we are now preparing to premiere our first major production for the stage. To be doing this at Bord Gais Energy Theatre as the opening performance of Dublin Dance Festival feels extra special. Chora, created in collaboration with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, is an ambitious debut featuring three new dance works: I Contain Multitudes by Maria Campos and Guy Nader, Constellations by myself, Liz Roche, and Invocation by Luail's Choreographer in Residence, Mufutau Yusuf. Chora takes inspiration from the ancient Greek word that describes a place for being that is a shared space - both real and imagined. This ground-breaking new work will see Luail's ensemble of extraordinary dancers join forces with the Irish Chamber Orchestra in a vibrant exchange of dance and live, contemporary orchestral works. The work celebrates the idea of shared spaces, both physical and emotional, and explores what they mean in our lives today. This theme runs through all of our productions in unique ways this year, and we are excited to see the many threads come together over time. Chora – along with the rest of our productions this year – is a work in dialogue with contemporary Ireland—work that celebrates our diverse culture, transcends language, and engages with complex societal themes. We hope that audiences see our inaugural production as more than just a showcase of movement – we see it as a conversation in motion, driving us toward a brighter, more connected future for dance. Together, we'll revel, rebel, and reimagine. Together, we'll move.
RTÉ News
02-05-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin on faith, family, identity and her debut novel
Writer Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin introduces her debut novel Ordinary Saints, an exploration of family, grief, queer identity, and the legacy of the Catholic Church in Ireland. In October 2020, I read a news story about the Italian teenager Carlo Acutis who, this week, will become the first millennial saint. Until then, I'm not sure I believed in creative lightning bolts. But as soon as I read that article, I saw the shape of what would become my first novel, Ordinary Saints. It tells the story of Jay, a queer Irish woman living in London. She's fiercely independent, borderline estranged from her parents, and determined to ignore her past. She has a group of close friends and a new girlfriend she's really into, but she tells them hardly anything about her life growing up, including the fact that her older brother Ferdia, a trainee priest, was killed in an accident when he was 24 and she was 16. Listen: Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin talks to RTÉ Arena Then, at the very beginning of the novel, she gets a call from her father, who tells her that the Archdiocese of Dublin is kicking off the process to have Ferdia made a Catholic saint. He invites Jay to come home for a mass celebrating the news and, in the months that follow, the stark divides that she's established in her life start to break down. She finally has to grapple with her grief for Ferdia, her relationship with her parents, and her feelings about the Catholic Church. When I began writing, I knew that the question of Ireland's social and religious transformation could be of interest to a broad audience. Living in the UK for the last twelve years, I've often found myself in conversations about our national progressive glow up, with spikes of interest around the marriage equality referendum, the repeal referendum, and that Christmas when literally everyone was gifted a copy of Small Things Like These. Looking at my own experience, the first eighteen years of my life were completely infused with religious belief. But in approaching the novel, I wasn't primarily interested in the headlines or statistics. Rather, the question that animated my writing was: how did it feel to live through this period of Irish history? How did it feel being a young queer person, seeing the country changing around you but still not trusting that it was safe to come out? How did it feel, as a Catholic parent, to continue bringing your children to mass through the successive waves of scandal? How did it feel to watch those children grow up and drift away from the faith? If the family is (officially) the fundamental unit of Irish society, how have our families adapted to the ruptures of the last three decades, and at what emotional cost? For the purposes of the novel, I decided to push these questions to something of an extreme, through the device of Ferdia's cause for canonisation. But at the same time, I've tried to explore my themes with as much nuance and understanding as possible. Ordinary Saints doesn't shy away from the failures and crimes of the Catholic Church, but it recognises that these questions of faith, family and identity are complicated. Looking at my own experience, the first eighteen years of my life were completely infused with religious belief. That brought some darkness, inevitably, in the form of guilt, shame, fear, and anger at the terrible abuses perpetrated by the Church. But at the same time, there are parts of it that I miss: the music, the familiar rhythm of the prayers, seeing almost everyone I knew at mass on Sunday mornings. In Ordinary Saints, I've tried to capture this ambivalence, which I suspect many people brought up in religious homes feel. You can at once hate that way that religion constricted your life, and also miss its moral clarity and comfort, or struggle to find another system of meaning to take its place. So ultimately, Ordinary Saints is story driven by questions rather than answers. On one level, it's about an obscure theological process. But much more than that, it's about a complicated family battling with grief and change – and trying to hold on to love through it all.
RTÉ News
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- RTÉ News
Andor returns — the team behind the Star Wars TV hit talks to Arena
The second and final season of Andor, the critically acclaimed Star Wars TV series, has just debuted on Disney+ to rave reviews, with some critics already calling it the finest TV show of the year. Andor is unique in the Star Wars universe... There is no magic... no Jedi Knights... no light sabers... The Force is strong in precisely nobody... Some have described it as 'Ken Loach in a galaxy far far away...' And what emerges from this earthy approach is a critically acclaimed spy thriller which depicts authoritarianism and resistance in an entirely human way.. The series stars Mexican actor Diego Luna as Cassian Andor, one of the fabled Rebel Spies who will go on to steal the plans for the Death Star warship, setting in motion the events of the first ever Star Wars film, A New Hope... Across its two seasons, this prequel series brings us into Cassian's life up to the events of the film Rogue One, following his journey from petty thief to revolutionary leader. The series is the brainchild of writer/director Tony Gilroy, and among its stars are Irish actors Denise Gough, Genevieve O'Reilly and Fiona Shaw. Gilroy is a keen reader of revolutionary history, and the Irish influence extends far beyond just casting. For RTÉ Arena, Sinéad Egan spoke to Andor series creator Tony Gilroy, along with stars Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgård and Adria Arjona - listen above.
