Liz Roche Company: Yes and Yes

Liz is the choreographer and artistic director of Liz Roche Company. Since 1999, the company has produced and toured her works performing throughout Ireland and internationally. Her work has been commissioned by The Abbey Theatre, Dublin Dance Festival, Cork Opera House, The National Ballet of China, Scottish Dance Theatre, Solas Nua Washington DC, Goethe Institut Irland, Arcane Collective, Croi Glan, DTI, and CoisCeim. Her 2015 work Bastard Amber was the first dance work ever to be commissioned from an Irish choreographer for the Abbey Theatre. She has also choreographed extensively in theatre and opera at The Gate Theatre, the Abbey Theatre, Landmark Productions, Lyric Theatre Belfast, Siren Productions, The Ark, Irish National Opera, Wexford Festival Opera, National Opera of Korea, Rossini Opera Festival, Liceu Barcelona, Opernhaus Zurich, Opera de Nice and Opera Ireland. In 2020, Liz was elected to Aosdána in recognition of her contribution to the Irish cultural landscape.

Sarah Cerneaux started street dancing at the age of seventeen in France. After completing her degree, she moved to Paris and continued her education with teachers such as Corinne Lanselle, Carolyn Carlson, Julyen Hamilton, and Junior Almeida. Since then, she has worked with Abou Lagraa Company (2006- 2014), Christine Bastin, David Drouard Company, Vincent Mantsoé, and Maryse Delente Company. She joined Akram Khan Company in November 2014 and toured with their production of Kaash for two years. She began working with Liz Roche Company in 2014 and performed in Bastard Amber, WRoNGHEADED, Pilgrimage, and I/Thou. Sarah now lives in France where she works with the Amala Dianor Company and Desiré Davids company. She recently started to develop her own work. 

Grace Cuny is a dance artist from Fort Worth, Texas, currently living in Limerick. She began her training in classical ballet attending summers at the School of American Ballet and performing with the Suzanne Farrell Ballet in Washington, D.C. before receiving her B.F.A. in Dance Performance at SMU in Dallas. Her dual love for dance and theater led her to devise movement for plays and explore more immersive spaces, collaborating with playwright and director Claire Carson and performing with physical theater group Prism Movement Co. After moving to New York, Grace worked as a freelance artist, forming relationships with Linked Dance Theatre and avant-pop band Reliant Tom. In 2021 she moved to Limerick to pursue an M.A. in Contemporary Dance at the Irish World Academy.

Katie Davenport is a set and costume designer based in Dublin and trained in production design for stage and screen at IADT. She has designed for many major theatre, opera and dance companies in Ireland, including The Abbey, The Gate, Irish National Opera, Landmark, United Fall, Liz Roche Dance Company, Northern Ireland Opera, Theatre Lovett, THISISPOPBABY, and Rough Magic and has associated at St Ann’s Warehouse (New York) and The Barbican (London). She has also worked in the art department at Ardmore studios, has designed for RTÉ and won an ICAD for Piranha Bar in 2016. In 2019 she was nominated for an Irish Times Theatre Award and represented Ireland at The Prague Quadrennial, a world exhibition of theatre design, and in Beijing NCPA at Evolving Design for Performance in 2016. Katie is vice chair of the Irish Society of Stage & Screen Designers and was designer in residence at The Gate Theatre Dublin in 2017. She recently participated in a cross disciplinary group curated by Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) and Project Arts Centre, Studio Interruptions in 2020 and recently contributed work towards a collaborative publication in 2021.

Ray has worked as a composer for film, television, animation and theatre for over 20 years. His work has been nominated for and won several awards including two IFTAs (Irish Film and TV Awards) and best original score for Liam Gavin’s horror, A Dark Song (Monster Fest, Australia). Recently, he scored Emer Reynolds' acclaimed The Farthest documentary, chronicling NASA’s 1977 iconic space probe. His recent TV work includes the acclaimed series Blood, The Young Offenders, Taken Down, Inspector George Gently & Love/Hate. Ray composed the score for Liz Roche Company’s Bastard Amber, Totems, WRoNGHEADED and the film Näher. He plays guitar with Irish band Something Happens.

José Miguel is an actor, director and filmmaker based in Dublin. A theatre graduate from Universidad de Chile and Trinity College Dublin, he is also a founding member of the artist led initiative DRAFF, an international magazine focused on dance and theatre. He is a founding member of The Company theatre ensemble, acting as director for all their productions between 2009 and 2012, and as DOP on Under the Selfsame Moon written by Brian Bennett. José has developed extensive work as a video designer, collaborating with theatre, dance, and visual artists. These include Hamnet, Shakespeare’s Last Play, and Beckett’s Room with Dead Centre, Salò Redubbed by Dylan Tighe, After by Liv O’Donoghue, and many others.

Director Wayne Jordan has spent the last three years working on a Master’s degree in Devised and Object Theatre at the Faculty of Alternative Theatre and Puppetry in Prague. He was an associate artist at the Abbey Theatre from 2010 to 2012. Wayne’s work at the Abbey Theatre includes Anna Karenina, The Plough and the Stars, Alice in Funderland, 16 Possible Glimpses, No Romance, Christ Deliver Us!, La Dispute, and Twelfth Night. Recent theatre work includes The Threepenny Opera and Enemy of the People (Gate Theatre). He was artistic director of Randolf SD | The Company and part of Project Catalyst, an initiative of Project Arts Centre. At Project Arts Centre, he has directed Ellamenope Jones, Everybody Loves Sylvia, Fewer Emergencies, The Public, The Drowned World, The Illusion, Eeeugh!topia (Randolf SD | The Company) and Elevator (THISISPOPBABY). Other work includes Celebration (Gate Theatre), La Voix Humaine (Dublin Fringe Festival) and Crave (Samuel Beckett Theatre and Studiobühne, Cologne). He is a graduate of the Samuel Beckett Centre, Trinity College Dublin.

Davison Scandrett served as Director of Production for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company from 2008–2012. Notable projects during his tenure include the Legacy World Tour, premieres of Nearly Ninety & Nearly 90^2, revivals of Antic Meet, Roaratorio, Rainforest & Squaregame, the Dia Beacon Events, and MCDC's final performances at the Park Avenue Armory. He also oversaw the documentation of production materials for inclusion in Dance Capsules and transfer to the Walker Art Center & New York Public Library. Since leaving MCDC, Davison has created lighting designs for Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener [Tesseract (with Charles Atlas), Blue Name, Light Years, Performance, Taste, Interface, Veal, Nox], Pam Tanowitz (New Work for Goldberg Variations, Once with Me, Sequenzas in Quadrilles, The Story Progresses, Broken Story, PASSAGEN, Heaven on One’s Head, The Spectators), Mike Birbiglia (Thank God For Jokes), Neal Brennan (3 Mics), and Paris Opera Ballet (Cunningham's Un jour ou deux). Production management credits include projects with Marina Abramovic, Wendy Whelan, Benjamin Millepied, Ohad Naharin, Kyle Abraham, Jennifer Monson, Brian Brooks, Steve Reich, Toshi Reagon, BalletBoyz, National Ballet of China, Ninagawa Company, Silk Road Ensemble, The Knights, Ensemble Signal, and Lincoln Center Festival. Before joining MCDC, Davison was the Head Electrician for the World Tour of Rent and the First National Tour of The Drowsy Chaperone, as well as the recipient of a 2007 Bessie Award for his collaboration with Sarah Michelson and Parker Lutz on the visual design of DOGS. He is a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts.

Toon Theunissen trained as a contemporary dancer at Fontys Dance Academy in the Netherlands. Originally from Belgium, Toon has been part of creative processes with Diego Sinniger de Salas, Antonin Rioche and Andreas Hannes, among others. This past year, he was part of the talent development program of Conny Janssen Danst. During this year-long internship, he performed in works by Fubunation and Conny Janssen. Since graduating in 2022, he has worked with and performed in pieces by Patricia van Deutekom (LAVA Collective). We Are The End Of Me, a co-creation of his and Roisin Harten's was selected to be performed at the Boulevard Festival (NL). In 2023, Toon will collaborate and be part of creative processes of Thomas Noone Dance, Liz Roche Company, and IlDance.

Nigeria-born Irish dancer, Mufutau had his introduction to contemporary dance at the age of 16 with Dublin Youth Dance Company and two years later professionally with the Irish Modern Dance Theatre in the production ‘Fall and Recover’, the first of many works with that company. He then subsequently enrolled in a four years undergraduate program at Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, which he graduated from in 2016. Since graduating, Mufutau has worked as a freelancer with various choreographers while developing his own artistic works. He is currently working as a freelancer between Ireland and Brussels where he works with Belgian choreographer Wim Vandekeybus and Ultima Vez.