Dance Connects partners local authorities of Cavan, Monaghan & Fermanagh-Omagh with practitioners of diverse dance communities working across professional, amateur and community dance in contemporary, jive/country, line/social, Sean-Nós, hip hop/urban, Scottish Country and Flamenco in their border areas & researchers Dr Victoria Durrer (School of Art History and Cultural Policy, UCD) & Professor Aoife McGrath (School of Arts, English and Languages, QUB).  

Employing an innovative, creative engagement approach combining dance practice-as-research and social science, the project strategically builds on the partners’ existing relationships & responds to the main areas of development identified in the research partners' recent (2023)  project, Sites of Significance. 

Working together, partners will respond to an expressed need for sustainable cross-border exchange that informs policy & is meaningful to the unique dance ecology of rural, cross-border areas. The project aims to establish a sustainable, rural dance network that engages in cross-genre peer sharing & skill building through a series of dance sharing events with local facilitators at their sites of practice. It will also develop: a publicly available, cross-border dance database; a touring, interactive, digital dance installation and public engagement programme; and website with video, podcasts and reports capturing regionally shared experiences of dance as a professional, enjoyable, social, cultural & creative activity.

Please note that the details of events listed above are provided by the relevant Local Authorities.