International Dance Festival Ireland was inaugurated in 2002 under the guidance of Catherine Nunes to pioneer the promotion of contemporary dance in Ireland. Originally a biennial event, the Festival was an immediate success, attracting international work from highly respected artists. In September 2007, Laurie Uprichard replaced Nunes as Artistic Director, and the festival name was changed to Dublin Dance Festival. From 2008, the Festival has been an annual event and continues to feature a breadth of international artists while also showcasing the best of Irish contemporary dance. More information about the festival and its history can be found at www.dublindancefestival.ie.
Dublin Youth Dance Company was founded in 2000 by Dance Theatre of Ireland’s artistic directors, Robert Connor and Loretta Yurick to give young people the opportunity to engage in training, creating, and performing dance. The company in its early years was run under the leadership of J. J. Formento. In 2001, the company hosted the first Irish Youth Dance Festival at the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, which has since become an annual event. It has also participated in a number of high-profile dance events in Ireland and abroad. In 2003, Mariam Ribón replaced Formento as the company’s artistic director. She continues to lead Dublin Youth Dance Company and to expand the scope and vision of the Irish Youth Dance Festival.
Patricia Durcan (née Cochrane) was born in Belfast and attended the Jim Johnson School of Dance in that city.
Russian ballet dancer and the first director of the Irish National Ballet School.
Emmanuel College, Cambridge was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay (1520/21-1589), Chancellor of the Exchequer to Queen Elizabeth I, for the purpose of educating Protestant preachers. The college was puritan in its outlook, and its early statutes promoted a Spartan and disciplined regimen. Owing to its strong Protestant ethos, the College grew rapidly. By the 1620s, it was the largest in Cambridge. The College did not only expand physically. Over the course of the seventeenth century, it broadened its scope and developed into a centre of humanist and latitudinarian study.
Maria Ann Emra was born on 8 October 1835 in Downton, Wilshire to the Reverend John Emra, perpetual curate of Redlynch, Somerset, and Maria Lydia née Symes. Her mother died a few days after her birth, and in 1839 her father married Frances Anne Atkinson. From this second marriage, Maria had eight half-siblings. One of them, Alice Emra, was author of a novel entitled The Dark Cavern; or, Harry’s Obedience. Maria Ann Emra never married. She died in Woodford, Essex on 7 March 1904.
Dr László Felföldi is the head of the Folk Dance Department at the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest and a member of a number of distinguished professional cultural organisations. His work centres on Hungarian folk dance traditions and those of Hungarian national minorities in Eastern Europe.