Welcome to Catapult Dance

Katherine O'Malley in Did I Make You Up? | Photo: Ros Kavanagh

Catapult Dance and Hugh O'Neill would like to gratefully acknowledge the help of The Arts Council/An Comhairle Ealíon in their support for the production of Did I Make You Up?

Catapult Dance and Hugh O'Neill also gratefully acknowledge the support of the following sponsors:

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About Catapult Dance:

Catapult Dance is based in Dublin, Ireland. The company was founded in March 2001 by Artistic Director Rebecca Walter. Catapult’s main focus is the creation of innovative dance theatre performance for both usual and unusual locations. The company has performed extensively throughout Ireland, including engagements at Project Arts Centre, Dublin Fringe Festival, Dublin Jazz Festival, Cork Midsummer Festival, Belfast Festival at Queens and the Institute of Choreography and Dance. Catapult is grant-aided by the Arts Council of Ireland and receives additional support from Project Arts Centre and Dance Ireland.

Over the past number of years Catapult has collaborated with composer Hugh O’Neill to produce several award winning shows including Extended Breath (in collaboration with dance artist Katherine O’Malley), everybody into the pool (winner of the Jayne Snow Award and the Bedrock Commission Award Dublin Fringe Festival 2004), and most recently, You Are Here, a site specific performance staged on four floors of St. Anne’s bell tower in Shandon, Cork. All of these performances have been created through a unique collaborative process, where key elements of choreography and music strongly influence each other as the piece is being made.

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Rebecca Walter is a freelance choreographer/dancer/producer and the Artistic Director of Catapult Dance. Her work for Catapult has been presented throughout Ireland. Recent projects include: Walk don’t run (site-specific film/dance project at a busy Dublin city-centre intersection, Project Arts Centre commission September 2007), playing along (as part of Input/Output, produced by Roy Carroll, Project Arts Centre August 2007) and a new version of Schreibstück (idea/concept Thomas Lehmen, Tanzquartier Wien March 2006, produced by Tanzquartier Wien, Dansens Hus Oslo and Rebecca Walter in association with Project Arts Centre as part of IDEE, a Culture 2000 programme funded by the EU). Rebecca is also currently collaborating with photographer Christopher Harrington on a video/photography/performance project entitled Collect ‘em all.

As a dancer, Rebecca has performed with Corp Feasa, ManDance, New Balance Dance Co., Daghdha Dance Co., Loose Canon Theatre, and Catapult Dance, among others. Rebecca has also taught extensively throughout Ireland including engagements at M.A. in Dance Course, University of Limerick, Dance Ireland, Institute of Choreography and Dance, Cork, Dublin Ballet School, College of Dance and Irish National Youth Dance Company.

Rebecca’s choreography for theatre includes: Attempts on Her Life (Rough Magic Theatre, Director: Tom Creed, 2007), Sleeping Beauty (The Helix/Landmark Productions, Director: Roisin McBrinn 2006) and The Bus (Barnstorm Theatre, Director: Phillip Hardy 2003).

Rebecca holds a B.F.A. from the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College SUNY and received additional training at the National Institute of the Arts, Taipei, Taiwan. She has been resident in Ireland since 1998.

Hugh O’Neill is a Dublin-born composer based in Berlin. He studied with Donnacha Dennehy and Roger Doyle in Trinity College, Dublin (TCD). The main focus of his studies was electronic, algorithmic and found sound composition. Hugh is currently a PhD candidate at TCD where he also earned an M. Phil in Music and Media Technology.

In sourcing music material, real world events, human activity and speech have always been strong sources of inspiration for Hugh. More recently, and as an extension of the principles of Musique Concrete (or found sound composition) his focus has been the exploration of musical instruments and their sonic capabilities beyond the standard uses of the instruments. His exploration of gesture in the performance of music coupled with an extended soundworld of the instruments has have provided him an opportunity to explore new timbral combinations within traditional instrumental combinations.

Over the last 5 years, Hugh has been working with Rebecca Walter and Catapult Dance in the creation of collaborative dance/music works.

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