An Irish Halloween / Oíche Shamhna

Selma Daniel is a choreographer and dance facilitator. She is an associate artist with Solstice Arts Centre, a participant in Branar Meitheal 2022/2023, and director of Little Lion Dance Theatre. She holds an MA in contemporary dance performance from the University of Limerick. 

Selma's creative practice is focused on investigating dance for young audiences and creating socially engaging dance for screen, stage, and public spaces. She uses the body, visual imagery, and props to create thought-provoking and visually stimulating dance experiences. 

Recent works by Selma include AdoleTA! (national tour, Ireland, 2023; presentation at Shanghai International Children’s Festival, China, 2021); Paper Plane about family diversity and OutWall, a dance for public spaces. Selma is currently working on a new production Befriending my Monster in partnership with First Fortnight Festival. 

In partnership with Solstice Arts Centre Selma created a program called Meath Move, an initiative to bring the community together through a series of opportunities for everyone from pre-school children to professional artists. Meath Move has 3 components: Cub Club, ‘moving words’ and Open Practice. To know more about Selma’s work visit https://selmadaniel.com

Olivia Patino is an Upper West Sider that writes and sings children’s music. She loves performing classic nursery rhymes, popular songs and original tunes for NYC families and beyond. Born in PA, her love for music started young; and in her teens she toured with the legendary Kenny Rogers. She was signed to Sony Music with her sister band “The Lunabelles” in 2010, and after years of being a touring musician and living in Nashville, she returned to NYC. When her daughter Odette was born in 2016, she was newly inspired to write music for a younger audience. Her debut children’s album is about to be launched and she couldn’t be more excited to share it with the world!

Branar Meitheal is a creative production support initiative which exists to advance the development of high-quality work for children and young people in Ireland by understanding and engendering the knowledge, culture and conditions that best enable it. Delivered by leading Irish theatre company Branar, it provides independent artists, at various stages of their careers, with a suite of bespoke practical and pastoral supports at key points in their creative cycle. As part of this work it facilitates international exchange to explore models of practice and build enabling connections. https://branar.ie/en/meitheal

Greg Corbino (Brooklyn, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist, puppeteer and educator whose work investigates how object performance and sculpture crafted from refuse material and engaged by community can create queer ecologies of care and action in public space. His work is deeply invested in nature and aspires to be zero waste, creating work from recycled, found and salvaged materials as an act of repair.

Greg Corbino (Brooklyn, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist, puppeteer and educator whose work investigates how object performance and sculpture crafted from refuse material and engaged by community can create queer ecologies of care and action in public space. His work is deeply invested in nature and aspires to be zero waste, creating work from recycled, found and salvaged materials as an act of repair. 

Gregory is a long time collaborator with Peter Schumann and The Bread and Puppet Theater where he was a full time company member from 2012-2016.  He has worked with Xaviera Simmons, Cecilia Vicuña Jennifer Miller and Circus Amok, Reverend Billy, Savitri D and The Stop Shopping Choir, Amy Trompeter, John Heginbotham and Cathy Weiss. 

As a designer and fabricator his work has been seen at The Guggenheim Museum, The High Line and The Queens Museum, The Leslie Lohman Museum of Art, The Brooklyn Academy of Music, and the Smithsonian Institution. 

Residencies have included LMCC Arts Center Governors Island (NYC), QueerLab (Rome), Isadora Duncan Dance Center (Greece), and Togo Village Art Museum (Taiwan).