Luail — Ireland's National Dance Company

Rachel Ní Bhraonáin is an artist making multidisciplinary shows and short films from her hometown of Waterford, Ireland. With storytelling at its core, her work combines dance, writing, and sometimes aerial, to create visually exciting and emotionally honest work. Rachel’s interdisciplinary approach comes from her varied background as a performer on stage, on screen, and on the sides of buildings. 

Rachel has created and collaborated on several street and theatre shows presented in Ireland and the UK, including MOSH, Losing Your Body, Clarity, Glimmer, and Duckie. Her short films have been screened at numerous festivals including GAZE international, IndieCork, and InShadow, Lisbon. 

Rachel is the 2024 Dance Artist in Residence at Garter Lane Arts Centre, where she focuses on engaging local dance enthusiasts and cultivating professional dance in Waterford City. Rachel is also the co-founder of Notions, a queer-art club night in Waterford, and works regularly as a teacher and a movement director for theatre. 

Luail—Ireland’s National Dance Company, was formed in 2024 to offer distinctive, high-quality experiences for dance artists and audiences. This new company will provide an island-wide platform for dance, collaboration, and development, seeking to strengthen the existing dance ecosystem, develop the art form, and develop pathways for artists to create work of scale and ambition. Luail exists to embody, embed, and empower dance across the island of Ireland, and to lead into a future that transforms how we make, know, and experience it.

The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance is a center of academic and performance excellence housed at the University of Limerick, Ireland. Founded in 1994 by Professor Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, the Academy has a strong international presence, with over 50 countries represented by its current student body and alumni, alongside a faculty of excellent performers, academics, and industry professionals. The National Dance Archive of Ireland (Cartlann Náisiúnta Damhsa na hÉireann) is housed in the Glucksman Library at the University of Limerick and works in partnership with Dance Research Forum Ireland, the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance and the Arts Council.

Solas Nua—‘new light’ in Irish, is a leading multi-disciplinary arts organization that is dedicated exclusively to contemporary Irish arts. Based in Washington, D.C., its mission is to bring the best of contemporary Irish arts to the U.S. Solas Nua acts as an ambassador and advocate for Irish arts in the U.S., promoting contemporary, multi-disciplinary Irish arts and culture.

Founded by Jean Butler in 2018, Our Steps is a not-for-profit organization that redefines the way we think about the history, practice, and performance of Irish dance by creating innovative archival, publishing, and multidisciplinary performance programs. Our Steps' inaugural archival project, entitled Our Steps, Our Story; An Irish Dance Legacy Archive currently holds over 200 hours of audio and video resources at The Jerome Robbins Division at The New York Public Library.

The Jerome Robbins Dance Division of The New York Public Library is the largest and most comprehensive archive in the world devoted to the documentation of dance. Chronicling the art of dance in all its forms, the Division acts as much more than a library. We preserve the history of dance by gathering diverse written, visual, and aural resources, and work to ensure the art form’s continuity through active documentation and educational programs.