She normally conducts interviews dressed in workout gear and sitting on a dance-studio floor. But this time Liz Roche is dressed more formally, seated in a hotel lobby. The choreographer is now the director of Ireland’s new national dance company; the era of donning her studio gear feels distant.
The company, called Luail, had a soft launch in May, and now Roche is in the midst of putting together an administrative team and finalising a core group of dancers. There’s also the search for the company’s new home. Think house hunting, except for a large dance studio and offices.
It’s all part of what she jokingly calls kicking the company into existence. “At the moment we’re right in the middle of the audition process,” she says. “We’ve had the first leg in Dublin, and next we’ll be auditioning in Brussels. Then there’ll be a callback in September, with the contracts starting in November.”
Finding an artistic home for the dancers is more challenging. “We’ve been down a few roads, but its ongoing,” says Roche. One possibility has emerged, but she won’t mention its location, as much for jinxing it as for maintaining confidentiality.
For her, putting together a company is familiar. She formed Rex Levitates in 1999, rebranding it as the Liz Roche Dance Company in 2012. But whereas her own company organically emerged over time, Luail has had a quick birth.
When the Arts Council first mentioned a possible new full-time dance company, in its October 2022 report, the council committed €5 million to the organisation’s creation over three years. After a call for proposals in May 2023, an unrealistic timetable predicted the new company would be revealed in October and functioning by the end of the year.
That deadline passed, but rumours of Roche’s success emerged. She was formally revealed as the successful proposer in March. Luail will partner with Maiden Voyage Dance, from Belfast, and the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, at the University of Limerick, in providing nationwide dance performances and projects. This means putting a pause on Liz Roche Dance Company to be artistic director of Luail.
[ Michael Seaver: Irish dance confronts the national questionOpens in new window ]
Eyebrows were raised at the speed with which the new company was thrust on to the dance landscape; there was also alarm that it would become a kind of monopoly, siphoning up precious funding. Roche is aware of these fears and has no desire to build an artistic fortress; she sees Luail as fully integrated into the existing environment.
“The word ‘luail’ means movement, but it’s a subtle movement, almost like an interior movement. I think of it like the movement of the nervous system. And that’s how I see the company, existing within a wider ecosystem. The company will support that ecosystem, but from the inside out.”
What sets Luail apart is its full-time contracts for dancers. Roche has always worked with a close group of dancers but could only ever employ them from project to project.
“It has always been part of my DNA to want to build a core company. I really like the idea of dancers being able to develop over time and really understand your way of moving and the way in which to perform.”
It also undoubtedly benefits the dancers. “Dancers employed for specific projects come in to the studio and dance wonderfully, but they’ve also probably just taken a plane the day before. They’re moving in and out of different accommodation. They’re going from gig to gig. I’m not saying it’s always stressful. Some people love it.”
For some in the arts, stability can be frowned on, as one step away from an office drone. A hungry artist is a good artist.
“I disagree,” says Roche. “You should expect a regular income. Stability is important, and I think that we have to work towards those kinds of conditions for all dancers.”
Choosing her core company of dancers is occupying a lot of head space. If Luail were an existing arts organisation, and Roche a new artistic director, she would pick repertoire to match the skills of the dancers within the company. Right now she is picking dancers to match repertoire that she has planned on paper for the next few years.
“It’s a really different experience,” she says. “Starting from scratch means you can’t even build a company around a handful of existing dancers. There is a wide range of work planned, so this search for this first company is looking for dancers with versatility, really experienced people with a lot of energy and curiosity and an openness to many different things that will emerge in the future.”
They will also need to gel as artists and people. “The culture of the organisation across the board is really important,” says Roche. “There will be times also where the company will expand and that core group will be joined by dancers employed on contract. We want that to be a good experience for everybody.”
She has been joined in these auditions by her associate choreographer Mufutau Yusuf; Nicola Curry, who is artistic director of Maiden Voyage; and two dancers who are trusted past collaborators, Emily Terndrup and Sarah Cerneaux.
“We talked a lot beforehand about what we needed to see from the applicants. We threw a lot of different things at them and then, after an hour, changed to something else. We really wanted people to be flexible but also bring their creativity into the auditions. Two days later we return to movements again to see how well they remember.”
Afterwards the difficult decisions start. “It’s not a question of who I might like or who Nicola might like. What we’re looking for is a combination of who we all can agree on. We are also imagining how somebody might look in a certain choreographer’s work or dancing with others.”
The intensity of these auditions reflect the full-time contract. This is not a group coming together for a couple of months but a core company that will dance a variety of styles and work with various choreographers, each with their own way of working. The stakes are high for all of the applicants. Full-time jobs are hard to find, and Roche is full of praise for those who have already auditioned, particularly as Luail is brand new. Dancers auditioning for established companies, such as Nederlands Dans Theater or Australian Dance Theatre, would know exactly the kind of dancer those companies are looking for.
“People have applied based on very little information, because we’re not able to announce what repertoire they will be dancing or which choreographers they will be working with. As the audition process draws to a close we’ll be able to tell people more about the type of work that we’ll be performing. But we were conscious that when people come in to audition they don’t really have any idea of what they’re facing into.”
Another feature to set Luail apart is its revival of older repertoire. Historically, Irish dance companies have constantly created new work, a trait not helped by funding schemes. Many important works have disappeared just after their premiere.
“Revisiting old work will be a big part of things going forward, reviving and reimagining existing work and touring that work. As a choreographer you make a dance and you can have a very dubious relationship with that work at the time. Sometimes you just want to forget about it; sometimes you can miss the nuggets in that work. Sometimes it was the wrong time for the audience to connect with it.”
While assembling the core company, Luail has commissioned four Irish choreographers – one from each of the provinces – to create a work in their local environment and community. Entitled To This I Belong, the series will see Dylan Quinn, Edwina Guckian, Tobi Omoteso and Lucia Kickham create work with contrasting dance styles: sean-nós, contemporary, improvisation, breakdance and hip-hop freestyle. This national spread and range of styles show Roche’s intention to be inclusive.
“The company will engage in dance, in conversation with contemporary Ireland. It doesn’t matter who the artist is, where they live or the genre, as long as that conversation with our contemporary world is happening.”
Luail is staging Boombox Gathering by Tobi Omoteso, the first part of To This I Belong, on Arthur’s Quay in Limerick on Saturday, September 14th, 3pm-6pm
