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Ingrid Nachstern is the daughter of English-born Evelyn Graham and Ukrainian-born Polish violinist Arthur Nachstern (1911-1999), one-time leader of the National Symphony Orchestra. She grew up in Dublin and studied French and Italian at Trinity College and German at the Goethe institute. She also learnt ballet from the age of 3 under the instruction of Muriel Catt but gave it up at 17. She took up dancing again in her 30s, taking ballet classes with Richard Sugarman in Toronto and Joanna Banks in Dublin. In 1996, Nachstern completed the Royal Academy of Dance teacher training course, and a year later she opened her own ballet school in Sandymount, Dublin. Nachstern’s career as a choreographer began in 1999 following the death of her father, which was a devastating blow but also a source of new creative energy. Her choreographic work, which fuses classical ballet with contemporary dance, has found expression through the Night Star Dance Company, which she founded in 2003.

Patricia Mulholland was the founder of the Irish Ballet School in Belfast and of the Irish Ballet Company, which made its debut in 1951 during the Festival of Britain in the Empire Theatre, Belfast. In 1953, at the request of the Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts (CEMA), Mulholland devised and produced the first Irish folk ballet, Cuchulain. A further group of ballets was sponsored by CEMA, including The Piper, The Dream of Angus Óg and Follow Me Down to Carlow. Other works in her extensive choreography, strongly influenced by Irish legends and folklore, include The Mother of Oisín, The Black Rogue, The Oul’ Lammas Fair in 1900, The Children of Lír, Phil the Fluter’s Ball and The Hound of Culann. Mulholland’s choreographies were not ballet in the classical sense but a form of folk ballet – Irish mythology interpreted by Irish dancers to Irish music and song. Patricia Mulholland is regarded as one of the most influential figures of twentieth-century Irish traditional dancing and the founder of Festival Dance, a specialised form of Irish dancing which focuses on the individuality of each dancer’s style, thus breaking away from the more rigid and formulaic ‘Feis’ style.

Mary Anne Mulcahy (née O’Keeffe) was born in 1927 in Mallow and first became interested in Irish dancing at the age of seven as a pupil of Joan Denise Moriarty, then the only Irish dancing teacher in the area. She later trained with Cormac O’Keeffe in Cork city. Having acquired teaching qualifications c. 1947, she established the Mulcahy School of Irish Dancing, which is now run by her daughter Breda. She also qualified as an adjudicator c. 1966. Mary Mulcahy remains well known in the Irish dancing circles and continues to travel around the world with pupils of the Mulcahy School of Irish Dancing.

Joan Denise Moriarty was a seminal character in the development of ballet in Ireland, both at amateur and professional levels. Little is known of her early life, including her date and place of birth. She was brought up in England and studied ballet in her youth with Marie Rambert. In 1933 her family returned to their native Mallow, where a year later Moriarty set up her first school of dance. In 1940, she established the Moriarty School of Dancing in Cork. She was also the founder of Cork Ballet Company (1947-1993) and Irish Theatre Ballet (1959-1964), which in 1963 merged with Patricia Ryan's National Ballet Company to form the short-lived National Ballet (1963-1964). The third ballet company associated with Moriarty was the Irish Ballet Company, later renamed Irish National Ballet, founded by the government in 1973 and financed by the Arts Council until 1989, when the funding was withdrawn and the company was forced to disband.

Moriarty was also a noted choreographer and drew inspiration from traditional Irish dance, a dance form in which she also excelled. Some of her best known ballets include Puck Fair (1948), The Children of Lír (1950), Papillons (1952), West Cork Ballad (1961), Devil to Pay (1962), Lugh of the Golden Arm (1977) and, perhaps most famously, The Playboy of the Western World (1978).

Joan Denise Moriarty continued her work with the Cork Ballet Company until the end of her life. She died in Dublin on 24 January 1992.

Katarína Mojžišová is a Slovakian dance artist who worked in Ireland between 2005 and 2012. Born in Uherské Hradišt? in the former Czechoslovakia, she gained an MA in Dance from VŠMU Bratislava in 1999. Her diverse career includes dance, film, theatre, and performance art. She has a particular interest in experimental dance works and cross-genre projects, such as O1, a 7-hour performance created in collaboration with sound artist Robin Parmar in 2006, and The Rite of Spring, Limerick (Commissions Award of The Arts Council and Limerick City Council), performed in the Parkway Shopping Centre on the day of vernal equinox in 2007. She has also created numerous choreographic works supported by art institutions and dance companies, including Parsifal Project (commissioned by Framemakers Symposium 2005); Dragon (supported by Daghdha Dance Company and selected for Dublin Fringe Festival 2006); and The Auction (commissioned by Excursions: Performance Festival 2005 and selected for Have-U-Met-Nosti Festival, Dublin, 2007). Katarína was also involved in the former Mentoring Programme of Daghdha Dance Company and has lectured on dance and performance at the University of Limerick and the Sculpture and Combined Media of Limerick School of Art and Design.

Michael Meehan is a retired academic and former member of the ruling body of An Coimisiún.