REBELLIOUS HOPE to Make World Premiere at Dublin Theatre Festival 2026
Dancers Joanna Banks, Amy Swanson Salmon and Ashley Chen join composer Mel Mercier onstage.
Seven internationally acclaimed performers aged from 46-86 years, to join composer and musician Mel Mercier on stage, for a new live work celebrating resilience, vulnerability and defiance - in the stage version of REBELLIOUS HOPE, which premieres at Dublin Theatre Festival 2026. Performances will run 30 September - 4 October.
Company Philip Connaughton, in association with Once Off Productions, bring a striking new live dance performance of Rebellious Hope, a work originally made for film by Luca Trufarelli in 2025. Charged with presence, urgency and defiance this beautiful show conjures joy in movement that aches with longing, memory and mischief - makes its world premiere at Project Arts Centre, as part of Dublin Theatre Festival 2026.
Combining dance, live music and personal testimony, Rebellious Hope offers a rare encounter with performers whose vulnerability and virtuosity are shaped by decades of lived experience. This stunningly moving show explores endurance, desire, memory and asks what remains, what endures and what compels us to carry on.
Rebellious Hope brings together seven internationally acclaimed dance artists between the ages of 46 and 86 years, all of whom have spent a lifetime on stage honing their craft. Connaughton's show explores the enduring artistic drive, growth, learning, a story told and performed by these professional dancers who are in a relentless pursuit of creative evolution. Accompanied live by Tony Award-nominated composer and musician Mel Mercier, these artists continue to perform internationally, refusing to stop doing what they were born to do. They all have something urgent to tell, show, express, and share.
Company Philip Connaughton has built a choreographic practice rooted in deeply personal questions, using performance-making as a way of searching for answers. This new work is inspired by the short documentary of the same title created by Company Philip Connaughton and Luca Trufarelli in early 2025. Connaughton says. 'The film was about me looking to these artists - all of whom I greatly admire and aspire to be like - as a source of inspiration. A kind of: what makes you keep going? Why should I keep going?'. After witnessing these artists speak so honestly in the documentary about what they do and why they continue to do it, it felt only natural to bring them together on stage and allow audiences to experience them in action, in all their glory.
Rebellious Hope is not nostalgic. It is about carrying lived experience into the future. Much of the material stems from the artists remembering moments in their lives when they realised they were in love. Love - or our willingness to allow ourselves to love - it feels intrinsically connected to hope; perhaps the only thing truly worth living for.
This new work focusses on seven dance artists that include 86 year old dancer, Joanna Banks (Royal Ballet Ballet Rambert, Irish National Ballet); Isadora Duncan dancer, Amy Swanson Salmon, who is also founder of the Isadora Duncan Commemorative Dance Company Paris; French dancer, Magali Caillet Gajan, famous in France for her work with Carnets Bagouet, Philippe decoufflé, and Boris Charmatz; French choreographer, Ashley Chen, who danced with Merce Cunningham Dance Company, and founder of Compagnie Kashyl. Chen has also performed in Ireland for the last three decades with many of Ireland's top dance companies; Critic's Award winner for 'Bossa porta', Montse Colomé, from Catalunya whose work spans internationally and in Ireland had worked on St. Patrick's Festival in Dublin for a number of years - has collaborated with the Irish theatre company Macnas- and she has choreographed the opening ceremony of 2006 The Ryder Cup; queer dance artist from Dublin, Matthew Morris - Matthew in his 60's is a big light on the Irish dance scene having performed with THISISPOPBABY (Party Scene), on many works with acclaimed choreographer Fearghus Ó Conchúir (who features in the film version Rebellious Hope). He has worked with Ballet Ireland and has danced internationally for all of his career too; and finally one of Ireland's leading contemporary choreographers, John Scott, artistic director of irish modern dance theatre and has pioneered transformative dance in Ireland since 1991.
Rebellious Hope will be a dance highlight at Dublin Theatre Festival 2026, as it makes its world stage premiere at Project Arts Centre (Cube), this October.
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