Resonant Bodies / Shared Sounds

Resonant Bodies / Shared Sounds
A Shared Island Residency & Creative Exchange
20–25 July 2026, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast

This July, Maiden Voyage Dance is proud to host the Belfast stage of Resonant Bodies / Shared Sounds, a major new cross-border residency exploring the meeting points between dance and music. Presented through the Luail | Maiden Voyage partnership the project brings choreographers, composers, dancers and musicians from across the island of Ireland into our home at Crescent Arts Centre for an intensive week of collaborative practice.

Led by choreographers Jonathan Burrows and Liz Roche and composer Brian Irvine, the residency offers space for genuine artistic risk-taking: investigating how choreography and composition can speak to one another across contemporary dance, traditional arts, improvisation and hip hop.

From 20–25 July, a selected cohort of professional artists will work intensively at Crescent Arts Centre, culminating in a public sharing on Friday 24 July and a Youth Artist Lab on 25 July — giving Belfast audiences and young artists a chance to witness the process up close. One choreographer and one composer from this Belfast cohort will then continue their collaboration into a second stage with the Luail Ensemble in Dublin this November, working towards a future commissioned piece.

Resonant Bodies / Shared Sounds is the second edition of Luail's Moving in Collaboration programme, and we're delighted that Belfast and Maiden Voyage are part of its journey.

Meet the artists

Choreographers: Jean Butler, Laura Murphy, Eileen McClory
Composers: Fionnuala Fagan-Thiébot, Cora Venus Lunny, Tim Doyle, with musicians from the Hard Rain Ensemble
Dancers: Robyn Byrne, Jou-Hsin Chu, Clara Kerr, Sean Lammer, Hamza Pirimo, Rosie Stebbing, Meghan Stevens, Michael McEvoy, Róisín Harten, Isabella Oberländer, Susannah McCreight

Full bios for the choreographers and composers are available here.

Funding

Resonant Bodies / Shared Sounds is supported by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Shared Island Civic Society Fund.

Luail is funded by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon. Maiden Voyage Dance is principally funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and supported by Belfast City Council.