The Irish Youth Dance Festival is a showcase for young talent, but thefuture's not bright for a career in dance, writes Christine Madden

Noon on Sunday, and it's good bet that the vast majority of under-25s are frying their breakfasts, cracking open packets of aspirin at their bedsides or just rolling over beneath the sheets. The small percentage who aren't involved in these morning-after activities are here before me, leaping, twisting and jack-knifing to a jazzed-up version of Vivaldi's Four Seasons. And this is just the warm-up.

Sundays mean rehearsals for the energetic members of Dublin Youth Dance Company. They're hosting the Irish Youth Dance Festival for the third time and are, as acting artistic director Samantha Lyons describes them, "raring to go".

And no wonder. With the lack of money and attention normally allotted to dance, young people languish on the lean side of an already lean sector. They get little or no encouragement to take up careers as dancers, and if they decide to pursue it regardless it ends up costing them and their parents a fortune, with no prospect of money or respect unless they up sticks and settle abroad.

Four years ago, says Catherine Farmer of Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, J. J. Formento reacted to the gap he perceived in the dance sector. With the help of Robert Connor and Loretta Yurick, directors of Dance Theatre of Ireland, he took the bull by the horns and founded DYDC. There had been an Irish Youth Dance Company until about 10 years ago, but it "died a death", says Lyons, after its financial backing was pulled.

Dancers between the ages of 16 and 25 can audition to become members of the troupe: all they need is interest, commitment and a little training. Lyons is astonished and gratified by the devotion the dancers bring to the group - but without that level of dedication, they wouldn't have come as far as this.

The sense of elation evident during the class turns to animated yet wry indignation during the break. It's not easy to keep them from all talking at once. "I've been dancing since I was yay high," says one, hand poised an inch or two from the floor.

"I was sent to ballet when I was four," several call out.

"I wasn't," retorts Yseult d'Estelle Roc. "There's so much I have to learn and so much more I want to learn. The more you see performances and do classes, the more you want to be doing it yourself."

Liv O'Donoghue, now 17, has been dancing since she was four. She's working towards her Leaving Certificate and hopes to go to dance college next year. "Dance is just good fun, and I'm always learning." Why is she doing it? "I don't know, it's just a habit now, I just can't not."

"It's kind of like a drug," agrees d'Estelle Roc.

The problems arise when young people with such a passion for dance wish to pursue it as a career, hoping that after their 26th birthday there will still be a place and scope for them to continue. "When you're a dancer, people wonder why you haven't got a 'proper' job," complains Lyons, and the company members agree.

When Mairead Lynch went to visit the careers counsellor at her school, he informed her that, if she insisted on doing dance, she would be doing it in a box, and that she had better study business instead. "He told me, number one, that I couldn't afford it and, number two, that I would have no possibilities anyway. I said: 'But you've never even seen me dance!' " "We're from a country that prides itself on its culture," says Gavin Logue, an actor who likes to limber up by dancing. But if people wish to become a proponent for that culture, "it doesn't do a lot for them".

As no State-subsidised programmes exist to educate dancers, "it's more or less written in stone that you have to leave the country" to study dance, says Ciara Nic Giollachoille. "You have to leave, and if you want to go to England your parents would have to remortgage the house to finance it. So I can't go to study dance."

With all this set against them, the company dancers are grateful for the opportunity to learn, develop and perform with DYDC. They are fervent enough not only to dance without being paid but also to pay for the opportunity: if accepted into the company, the young dancer must hand over a fee for the privilege. Such companies don't have enough funding to exist without charging their members.

Also performing at the Irish Youth Dance Festival, the Irish National Youth Ballet fits into this category as well. Under the direction of Anne Campbell-Crawford, the company has taken part in the festival for the past three years, bringing another largely overlooked genre to the public stage. It will present the Waltz Of The Flowers, a taster from its upcoming production of The Nutcracker, next month.

Taking part in the festival, says Campbell-Crawford, "gives our dancers the opportunity to perform in different arenas, to different audiences, and to meet different cross sections of dancers".

The members of WYDmoves, from, Waterford have also appeared in the festival for the past three years; they do it "for the experience of seeing what other people are doing and being part of a national event," explains director Libby Seward. "An event like this is absolutely essential." She demurs from calling herself the choreographer - "it makes you sound like a grand puppeteer". She prefers to regard herself as the "facilitator of creative work" for the pieces WYDmoves is bringing to the festival, Tigit and Anything Strange?

The festival features many other young performers. Myriad Dance and Wexford Youth Company are collaborating on a piece, joined by New Moon Youth Dance Company, from Cork, and Daring Feet Company, from Derry (connected to Echo Echo dance company).

Laurie Schneider, a member of DYDC, will perform a solo she choreographed, Thomas Butler will also perform a solo and Lisa McLoughlin will present her piece Tender Hooks Of Honesty, first seen at the Irish Choreographers' New Works Forum last June, which won an award as part of Dublin Fringe Festival.

Putting aside their woes, the DYDC dancers bound back into the studio to rehearse Al Abla, choreographed by artistic director Mariam Ribon, and Visual Literary Linguistics by Lyons.

They retain their zeal despite the bleak outlook for their careers. "If I pursue a career in dance," says Kate Murphy, who hopes to study at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance, in Leeds, "I don't expect to have any money. But I'll be doing something I love, and that's the important thing."

• The Irish Youth Dance Festival is at the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, on Sunday at 7.30 p.m., with pre-show entertainment from 6.30 p.m.