Provocative new dance work comes to Longford theatre

THE ACT of Existing, provocative new dance work by celebrated choreographer Philip Connaughton for Croí Glan, exploring what happens when two artists willingly surrender to an audience’s will is set to take to the stage at Backstage Theatre.

This autumn, 20 years after the founding of the groundbreaking Croí Glan Integrated Dance Company, which creates performances with diverse bodies, The Act of Existing is on tour across three counties, and will be at Backstage Theatre Longford tonight (Wednesday.)

Blurring the boundaries between observation and participation, The Act of Existing invites audiences into a live encounter with dancers Bobbi Byrne and Ben Sullivan where influence is never straightforward and responsibility is never neutral. The piece, which has been made in collaboration with the performers, highlights how marginalised communities have been historically subjected to societal control, a theme which is especially urgent in today’s climate of rising far-right rhetoric.

Playful, unsettling, and revealing, this striking new work explores what it means to simply be ourselves in relation to others. As expectations, choices and boundaries shift, The Act of Existing asks whether the simple act of being can become something profound.

Croí Glan, led by co-founder and co-artistic director Tara Brandel and newly appointed co-artistic director Bobbi Byrne (who performs in The Art of Existing), has a long history of commissioning work from leading Irish dance artists. The company is delighted to be working with Philip Connaughton, with his interest in breaking social norms, and themes of otherness and power dynamics - concerns shared by the company and particularly relevant at this moment in time.

Led by Co-Artistic Directors Tara Brandel and Bobbi Byrne, Croí Glan is an award-winning disabled-led Contemporary Dance company celebrating diverse bodies on stage, and a flagship company for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), with a case study in the Arts Council’s new EDI handbook.

Creating 22 works since 2006, west Cork-based Croí Glan has toured nationally and internationally. Highlights of the company’s body of work include Tara Brandel’s Sputnik for the Unlimited Festival/Cultural Olympiad London Southbank 2012, Liz Roche's An Outside Understanding (Dublin Dance Festival 2013, nominated Best Performers Dublin Fringe 2012), the multi award0winning short film Armour Off! (in collaboration with Invisible Thread, Caroline Bowditch and Linda Fearon), and David Bolger's On the Wall (performed in 25 locations including Miami, San Francisco, Minneapolis, Barcelona, Bern, and Turku).

Croí Glan’s most recent productions include CHANGE (4 star review Irish Times ad highlight at Dublin Fringe 2025); Armour Off, a multi award-winning film; and In Place, presented at IMMA in 2021.

Croí Glan is EDI Company in Residence at Uillinn Arts Centre 2022-28.

Philip Connaughton is a choreographer from Dublin. He trained locally before studying at the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in London.

He was Artist-in-Residence at axis in 2012, where he created Mortuus Est Philippus for Dublin Dance Festival and Festival Instances, Chalon-sur-Saône. He was Associate Artist with Dance Ireland in 2013 and, in 2014, founded Company Philip Connaughton.