Normally, you’ll find Liz Roche in her fitness attire, hosting interviews from a dance studio floor. However, we now find her seated formally in a hotel lobby, a departure from her usual setting. This change reflects her new role as the director of Ireland’s latest national dance company, Luail. It could be said her days in her usual studio gear seem a long way off.
Luail, the new dance company, had a preliminary launch in May; Roche is currently engaging herself in hiring an administrative team and finalising the primary group of dancers. Alongside the recruitment is a serious quest that involves acquiring a large dance studio along with offices. She equates this whole process to propelling the company into operation.
Presently, Roche narrated, “The company is right in the middle of the audition process. We completed the first part in Dublin and next, we’ll be conducting auditions in Brussels. The callback is scheduled for September, and the contracts will commence in the month of November.”
While recruiting dancers is a big task, securing an artistic dwelling for them is quite cumbersome. Multiple attempts have been made by Roche, with one location elevating as a possibility, though the exact location is withheld both from superstition and for the sake of discretion.
Roche is accustomed to the rigours of forming a company, having founded Rex Levitates in 1999 and later rebranded it as the Liz Roche Dance Company in 2012. Unlike her personal company which developed over the years, Luail’s inception has been swift.
Luail was first proposed by the Arts Council in their October 2022 report, which proposed an investment of €5 million over three years for the organisation’s development. By May 2023, a call for proposals was enacted, with the unrealistic expectation that the company would be operational by the end of the year.
Despite missing the deadline, speculation of Roche’s success began to surface and, subsequently, she was officially announced as the successful candidate in March. Luail will collaborate with Maiden Voyage Dance, from Belfast, and the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, from the University of Limerick, to deliver nationwide dance performances and projects. Consequently, Roche will have to take a break from Liz Roche Dance Company as she takes the helm at Luail.
There’s been some surprise over the swift debut of the new dance organisation onto the scene, alongside some concern about its potential to monopolise valuable funds. However, Roche, recognising these worries, assures her aim is not to build a cultural stronghold with Luail, but for it to be an integral part of the existing ecosystem.
Luail, a word embodying subtle and internal motion, akin to the workings of the nervous system, describes how Roche views the company’s place within the broader ecosystem. From within, Luail plans to bolster this ecosystem.
The dance company stands out due to its employment of dancers on a full-time basis, a departure from Roche’s past practice of hiring dancers only on a project-to-project basis.
Roche expresses her deep-rooted desire to build a solid team of dancers, and her admiration for the journey a dancer takes in understanding the unique movements and performance style over time. Furthermore, she acknowledges the undeniable advantage this brings to the dancers.
She understands that dancers working on specific projects often face challenges such as frequent travel and inconsistent living conditions, hopping from one job to another, which is not always enjoyable despite some finding it exciting.
Within the arts, there’s a tendency to view stability as breeding complacency. There’s a common belief that artists perform better when they’re in constant pursuit of their craft. Roche dismisses this, arguing that dancers ought to receive a consistent wage as stability is key. She stresses the need to strive for such conditions for all dancers.
Roche has devoted considerable time and thought into selecting her core team of dancers, a task that would differ if Luail were an already established organisation and she were a new art director. In this scenario, Roche would have tailored her selection to the performers’ skills. However, currently, she’s identifying dancers who match the repertoire she has envisioned for the years to come.
She admits that creating a company from the ground up is a unique process, given the lack of dancers to build upon. The diverse body of work planned necessitates the search for versatile, experienced dancers full of energy, curiosity, and a readiness to embrace the unpredictable future developments.
Fostering a cohesive company culture is vital as the artistic endeavour evolves, says Roche. There will be instances where the foundational team is supplemented by contracted dancers when scaling the enterprise, and it’s beneficial for all parties to have a positive experience with this transition. To help manage auditions, Roche is joined by associate choreographer Mufutau Yusuf, artistic director Nicola Curry of Maiden Voyage, and two reliable previous co-workers: Emily Terndrup and Sarah Cerneaux.
Concerning the evaluation process, the team had a detailed discussion on the expectations from the participants. They posed numerous challenges to the applicants, alternating activities every hour to test their flexibility and creativity. This process also incorporated sessions to test the dancers’ ability to recall movements. The decision-making process post-audition isn’t about personal preferences, instead, it focuses on reaching a consensus on who fits the collective vision. The team also tries to foresee how each applicant would perform in different choreographers’ pieces and how they might sync with other dancers.
These intense auditions suggests the comprehensiveness of the full-time contract. It’s not a temporary assembly but a main team that will perform eclectic dance styles and collaborate with a myriad of choreographers, each having their unique approach. Given the intense competition, securing full-time positions is challenging, and Roche admires the dancers that have already auditioned, particularly considering the novice status of Luail. Dancers usually have distinct expectations when auditioning for established companies like Nederlands Dans Theater or Australian Dance Theatre.
However, we’ve received applications based on minimal information, as we’re yet to disclose which dance routines the dancers will be performing or which choreographers they’ll collaborate with. Nevertheless, as the audition phase draws to its end, we’ll be revealing more about the choreography that we’ll stage. It was our deliberate choice to maintain an element of surprise for prospective auditionees regarding the nature of what they’re signing up for.
Luail sets itself apart by bringing back older repertoires, a characteristic uncommon in Irish dance companies due to constant production of new work and certain funding limitations. Many significant pieces have been lost soon after their debut.
Going forward, the company will focus more on revamping and reinterpreting existing works and then putting them on tour. Given the complicated relationship a choreographer often has with their craft, this could provide an opportunity to reconsider some works which had originally been dismissed. Sometimes, these dances may have hidden gems that were overlooked, or perhaps they were initially introduced at the wrong time for the audience to connect with them.
As Luail goes about building its primary company, it has commissioned four Irish choreographers, assigning one from each province, to develop a piece of work within their local communities and setting. The project, known as To This I Belong, will showcase the creative abilities of Dylan Quinn, Edwina Guckian, Tobi Omoteso and Lucia Kickham. These artists will demonstrate a variety of dance styles including sean-nós, contemporary, improvisational dances, breakdance, and hip-hop freestyle. The geographic distribution and diversity of the styles symbolise the inclusivity intended by Roche.
Luail plans to engage in dialogues with modern Ireland through dance. They maintain that the artist’s identity, place of residence or their style of dance is immaterial, as long as there is active engagement with the contemporary world.
The first part of To This I Belong, ‘Boombox Gathering’ by Tobi Omoteso, will be presented by Luail on Saturday, September 14th, at Arthur’s Quay in Limerick, between 3pm and 6pm.