Dance Emergency / Damhsa na hÉigeandála (TG4 Splanc!, Midas Productions)

Dancers, detectives, and Dublin’s North Strand Bombing: Discover Irish-German Erina Brady’s forgotten chapter of Modern Dance in 1940s Ireland. Against the backdrop of seldom-seen 1940’s bohemian Dublin, and suspicions of Nazi espionage, we recount an Irish-German artist’s forgotten struggle to bring Modern Dance/ German Ausdruckstanz to a conservative, inchoate Ireland that was not yet ready for it. Interpreted beautifully by the great Olwen Fouéré, choreographed by Jessica Kennedy, we frame Brady’s legacy in the context of the thriving contemporary dance scene in Ireland today. Features the late Patrick Scott, as well as Fearghus O Conchuir, Declan Kiberd, Peter Sheridan, Una Kavanagh, Karen Gleeson, Lucia Kickham, Tom Hickey, Pat Laffan, Michael James Ford, Zena Donnelly, and the students of The College of Dance. “Dance Emergency”/ “Damhsa na hEigeandala”, Deirdre Mulrooney'’s hour long TG4 Splanc thriller/modern dance documentary set in 1940s Dublin, premiered at Galway Film Fleadh in July 2014, and had its TG4 premiere broadcast in January 2015. Damhsa na hÉigeandála was selected for screening at the Belgrade-Irish Festival in March 2015. Its North American Premiere took place at the prestigious Dance on Camera Festival, Lincoln Center, NYC in February 2016 (kindly supported by Culture Ireland). The Canadian Premiere took place at Irish Film Festival Ottawa, in 2017. The film was the focus of Deirdre’s keynote lecture at University of Limerick’s Irish-German “Connections in Motion” Conference at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in October 2016. Dance Emergency’s Dublin premiere took place in the Military Archives at Cathal Brugha Barracks – home of Erina Brady’s secret G2 file – on Culture Night (September 22nd) 2017. The film is on the German syllabus at University of Limerick, and Deirdre's script was published bilingually in English and German in TANZ Magazine, (Berlin), in May 2015 and on the Goethe Institute Dublin website.