How did you go about setting up your own dance company?
It’s quite a long road. We started setting up the company in 2023 and we premiered our first work under the company name as part of the 2024 Belfast International Arts Festival, a big show called The Gate House.
We did this out of necessity, because I have always wanted to be a choreographer and a Theatre-Maker, but I was riding a freelance wave for nearly ten years, ever since I choreographed my first show in The MAC in 2014. It was 10 years of coming up against the same types of bumps in the road that made me think I needed to set up a company.
We needed a company structure to answer the needs of the way funding works here. It was a big risk, especially for the European Network, because I work a lot in the Republic of Ireland and they don’t have a company structure at all. A lot of dancers are able to work as independent individuals because that is the way the structure works there.
It was a means to an end but it was like a call to arms because I either set up a company or give up.
Were you producing your own work before you set up the company?
I have been very lucky with commissions and with funding from the Arts Council. I have had everything from small grants to SIAPs to Digital Evolution Grants to International Artist Development Funds. I think I have received something from every part of what is available to individuals regarding funding from the Arts Council.
There are a lot of programmes for dance out there if you look closely enough. Since I graduated from my BA in 2019, and I came back here in 2020, because of the Pandemic, Almost immediately I received a commission from Maiden Voyage Dance. I think there were around 6 to 10 artists who were given funding to collaborate with each other to make films during Lockdown.
I got a SEED commission from Maiden Voyage and then I became a Studio Artist with NI Opera for a year, where I was an associate choreographer. I was then chosen as one of the 21 artists for the 21st Century which allowed me to make work.
I got a commission for Dance Associate, then I was a REVEAL artist for Prime Cut and then an Incubate Artist for Tinderbox.
That seems like a lot of work both in terms of getting funding and then producing work?
Most of these commissions were not really meant for dance, rather for producers, writers and directors but I found a way to make it work. I found a way to make dance fit into that box.
I have always been that type of individual who, if I am given £500 and people ask me to research something, will just say, “’ll make something with this money.”
I think I always say this is how much I have access to and I will make work with what I have. Most of what I have produced has been done on a very little to nothing budget.
To follow up on the work of Michael McEvoy see the link below
