Introduction

Abstract

Dance is transforming the performance landscape in Ireland, and this collection of essays addresses the need for critical scholarship about contemporary dance practices. The volume provides a timely affirmation that the critical study of dance, choreography, and movement practices, historically neglected and chronically under-researched in Ireland, does indeed matter, and that it can provide valuable insight into the intersections of the corporeal, the cultural, and the sociopolitical. The collection also highlights the current material matters of dance in order to examine what matters for dance scholarship and practice today; investigations that are applicable beyond the ‘Irish’ context of this study. This book is the first publication to bring together the voices of an exciting new wave of dance scholars analysing contemporary dance in Ireland.