ABOUT SIX DANCE COLLECTIVE
Six Dance Collective was founded by ballet dancer and choreographer Ruaidhrí Maguire. After dancing extensively in North America, Europe, UK, NI and Ireland, the impetus to create SDC came from the desire to expose audiences and artists in Northern Ireland to the richness and variety that ballet can bring to contemporary stories alongside presenting the stalwarts of the classical repertoire.
Six Dance Collective formed is commitment to creating opportunities for artists across all forms to collaborate to inspire inspiration and growth. In addition to this, the collective is dedicated to expanding audiences and deepening understanding of dance. Through thought-provoking programmes, we want to provide the audiences with new access to the transformative power of dance.
Mission
To forge new artistic collaborations across arts disciplines that use the rich classical dance vocabulary to address contemporary themes along with providing better access to existing repertoire.
Our work is divided into three strands: CREATE, UPLIFT and TRAIN.
White Doves (2023). Leigh Alderson as the Male Dove.
CREATE
Creating and Performing new works for Northern Ireland's stages
We aim to bring contemporary relevance to ballet by creating and presenting original, collaborative works that respond to local and global issues.
In 2023:
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White Doves, four performances at The MAC
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Created dance film Corners
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'White Doves pas de deux' at Dancer from the Dance Festival
In 2024:
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After/Before at Belfast Ballet Festival, The MAC
Upcoming in 2025:
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first fully-professional programme, Belfast
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second youth production, Belfast
White Doves (2023)
Image by Norm Kielty.
After/Before in rehearsal (2024)
Image by Amelia Clarkson.
UPLIFT
Celebrating and promoting emerging dance
To support the growth of dance in Northern Ireland, we are dedicated to initiatives which promote and celebrate the work of our local dance artists, and bring the community together. This year, we launched our 'Dance in Motion' initiative in collaboration with The MAC, providing a platform for emerging dance artists to share their work-in-progress on stage. This will return in Spring 2025.
We are committed to cultivating opportunities for Irish and Northern Irish dancers nationally. Mist recently, we collaborated with Ulster Touring Opera to send SDC dancers to Eisteddfod 2024 in Wales. Additionally, we are proud to collaborate with homegrown talent now working further afield, recently working with dancers Leigh Alderson and Anna McCoy.
Sarah Flavelle in Dance in Motion (2024) Image by Amelia Clarkson.
Eisteddfod 2024.
TRAIN
Providing access high-quality training experiences to dancers of the future
SDC recognises the need for enriching training and performance experiences for aspiring dancers. We recognise the barrier that many local young people have to access training, so we create access to working dancers and ballet and contemporary dance masterclasses, workshops and intensives.
In 2023:
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28 dancers aged 10-17 performed side-by-side with inetrnational soloists and musicians in newly created White Doves at The MAC
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70 young people engaged with workshops
In 2024:
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46 young people engaged with workshops and intensives
White Doves rehearsals (2023)
Image by Amelia Clarkson.
In Motion workshop (2024)
Image by Amelia Clarkson.
To perform existing and create unique repertoire that is relevant to our times and contributes meaningfully to the future of ballet and dance as an adventurous theatrical form in Northern Ireland and beyond, making it accessible to all types of audiences. We are dedicated to promote and facilitate collaborations between artists born or residing in Northern Ireland, along with bringing international talent to NI. By collaborating across art forms, our goal is to bring a modern aesthetic and contemporary relevance to ballet, presenting existing repertoire through the present-day gaze, developing original works that respond to the environment, local and global issues, and communities where our work is created and shared.