Michael Keegan-Dolan
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1969
Michael Keegan-Dolan | |
|---|---|
| Born | Michael Dolan 1969 Dublin |
| Education | Central School of Ballet |
| Occupation(s) | Dancer, choreographer |
| Style | Contemporary dance |
| Spouse | Rachel Poirier |
| Children | 2 |
| Website | https://teacdamsa.com/ |
Michael Keegan-Dolan (born 1969)[1] is an Irish choreographer and dancer. He is the founder of Teaċ Daṁsa and the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre company.
Keegan-Dolan trained as a dancer at the Central School of Ballet in London.[2] He became an associate artist at Sadler's Wells, the UK's primary contemporary dance theatre.[3]
A limited dancer,[4] he moved into choreography, working on productions at Royal Opera House, the English National Opera, and the National Theatre.[5]
Returning to Longford in Ireland, he founded the Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre in 1997. Among its productions, Giselle,[6] The Bull[7] and The Rite of Spring[8] were nominated for Olivier Awards.
In 2014, he dissolved the company and re-emerged[tone] with Teaċ Daṁsa (teach damhsa, Irish for "house of dance", stylised with an overdot used in traditional Irish orthography) in 2016.[3] Based in the Irish-speaking Gaeltacht area of County Kerry in the south-west of the country,[9] its first work was Swan Lake/Loch na hEala, a reimagining of the Tchaikovsky standard that disregards the original score.[10]
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Mám, with music by west Kerry concertina maestro Cormac Begley and Berlin orchestral collective Stargaze, debuted in Dublin in 2019.[11] Described as a "mysterious, mythic" work,[12] it moves on from previous retellings of classic ballets and tales to build a work responding to the original music, with dancers' individual, stylised solos continually giving way to ensemble pieces.[13] It was performed at and part-produced by Sadler's Wells in London. It has also been performed in the United States, Germany, Italy, Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan, in addition to a tour of regional arts venues in Ireland.[14]
"How To Be A Dancer in Seventy-Two Thousand Easy Lessons", a biographical work in collaboration with Keegan-Dolan's partner and longtime collaborator Rachel Poirier, followed in 2023. Unusually,[according to whom?] he danced in the production.[15]
Nobodaddy debuted in September 2024 at the Waterfront Hall in Belfast, followed by runs at the Dublin Theatre Festival and Sadler's Wells in London. It is named after a figure from the poetry of William Blake. US folk musician Sam Amidon supplied much of the music and performed in the show.[16]
