Female-Focused TRINITY IRISH DANCE COMPANY Gets Loud On Stage at Carpenter Center

Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center, located on the campus of Cal State Long Beach, presents the ground-breaking Trinity Irish Dance Company as part of the Center's Dance Series. Hailed as "sophisticated and commanding," by the Los Angeles Times and "impossibly complex," by The New York Times, Trinity Irish Dance Company returns to the Los Angeles area for the first time in over a decade on Saturday, March 2, 2019. Committed to empowering female artists on and off the dance floor, the primarily women-based company will perform newly choreographed pieces never before seen in Los Angeles, featuring hard-driving percussive power and lightning-fast agility.

Founded in 1990, by Emmy-award winning choreographer and Artistic Director, Mark Howard, Trinity Irish Dance Company (TIDC) was the birthplace of progressive Irish dance, which opened new avenues of artistic expression leading directly to commercial productions such as Riverdance. Howard's vision-fusing the vibrancy of traditional Irish dance with contemporary American ideas-has been met with great critical acclaim around the globe, with sold-out tours in Europe and Asia and appearances in distinguished US venues including the Kennedy Center and New York's Joyce Theater.

Since its inception, Trinity Irish Dance Company (TIDC) has celebrated the strength and resilience of young female artists through intentional casting, choreography, and costumes and utilized their artistic platform to denounce the objectification of women. In a recent interview with NPR affiliate WUWM, associate artistic director and choreographer at TDIC Chelsea Hoy noted that unlike some commercial Irish Dance productions where the role of women has been pushed to the background, the dancers of Trinity Irish Dance Company-18 women and 2 men-are presented on equal footing allowing the whole ensemble access to the full-expression of movement. Claiming it as her favorite part of dancing, Hoy continued by saying that the women of Trinity Irish Dance Company, "not only get to make noise, but are expected to make noise."

Hoy co-choreographed a new piece "An Sorcas" with Howard, which will have its West Coast premiere March 2 at Carpenter Performing Arts Center. The piece is a commentary on the battle between substance and spectacle in performing arts and Irish Dance specifically. The dancers, costumed in jackets made up of deconstructed Irish Dance competition dresses, flip that notion on its head, performing in reverse and stripping away the spectacle to reveal a raw honesty underneath.

The March 2 performance marks another special moment for Trinity Irish Dance Company. Like thousands of people between 1947 and 1967, Trinity Irish Dance Company founder Mark Howard and his mother immigrated to the United States from England aboard the Queen Mary before it was permanently docked in Long Beach. Howard and his mother, who will be in town for the performance, will visit the Queen Mary during their stay in March.

Tickets for Trinity Irish Dance Company start at $50. For tickets and more information, visit CarpenterArts.org or call the Carpenter Center Ticket Office at (562) 985-7000. This series is made possible in part by Season Media Partner KPCC 89.3-FM.