IAC Commissions: Tobi Omoteso

“[In dance,] your colour, race, gender, ethnicity, background did not matter. The dance community was accepting of everyone. As a kid it was a haven.”—Tobi Omoteso, in the Irish Times, on growing up Black in Ireland

Tobi Omoteso is a Nigerian-Irish b-boy and hip-hop freestyle dancer, choreographer, and educator. As a dance facilitator, Tobi has designed and facilitated youth programs for Dance Ireland, Dublin Dance Festival, Waterford Youth Art, Laois Dance Platform, Take A Part Carlow, and Dance Limerick. He has performed his own work at the Imagine Arts Festival, Dublin Dance Festival, Limerick Fringe Festival, What’s Next Festival, Laois Dance Platform, Glor Performance Platform, Dance2Connect, Dance Ireland’s Dance Talks, and many other festivals and events.

Tobi is curator and director of the hugely popular Top 8 Street Dance Battle at Dublin Dance Festival, which delivers the best of Irish and International street dance to new audiences. His television appearances include Sky’s Got to Dance, the US television series Penny Dreadful, and numerous music videos and commercials. He has worked with some of Ireland’s leading choreographers, including David Bolger, John Scott, Catherine Young, Libby Steward, David Francis Moore, and Lucia Kickham.

Stephen is an award-winning director, a visual storyteller who crosses genres and mediums from horror films to dramas to hip hop music videos. His work explores themes of isolation and the different forms it can take. Some of his most recent work includes music videos with hip hop mega artists Denise Chaila for "Holy-Grail" and "Anseo," and God Knows for "Who’s Asking" and "Mup I said." 

Other notable projects include:
Nightshift (2019)—feature film distributed by SONY Pictures Home Entertainment
Nightflyers: The Mission (2018)—marketing promo for NBC/Netflix

The pandemic has forced humanity into an involuntary state of uncertainty that may last a long time. This is troubling, of course, but, as with any of life’s terribly sad moments, is not without redemptive possibility. We are challenged to find a new comfort level with uncertainty as a more constant companion. 

Like everyone, we at Irish Arts Center are entering a new phase of grappling with all of this. We still don’t know when it will be safe or allowable to gather in groups for live performing arts experiences. We continue to innovate our digital programming and prepare for our magnificent new building that awaits us, soon enough we hope. We develop scenarios and contingency plans. 

And we challenge ourselves to lean into the moment. For this, as ever, we rely on the artists. 

To that end, we have commissioned more than two dozen artists reflecting a range of perspectives across our artistic community, to create short works that respond to the idea of finding grace in uncertainty, to find meaning in the chaos, and perhaps even some redemption, as we recognize the fear and sadness we feel. 

In his work On the Transmigration of Souls, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic just weeks after 9/11, John Adams sought to create a “memory space” for those who suffered loss of life, of loved ones, of innocence, and to evoke the feeling “that we are all united by a common bond of humanity.” 

In a similar spirit, we wish to inspire a volume of artistic responses that might form a kind of tapestry of emotion, a chronicle of the moment, work that can be appreciated now and for the long-term.

The common bond of humanity unites these artists—and will carry us all through this moment.