Item 15 - Photograph of Maria Nilsson performing in Paper Pylons

Fiona Quilligan was born in Dublin and studied dance at Dun Laoghaire College of Art and the London School of Contemporary Dance. She performed with Dublin City Ballet before founding Rubato Ballet in 1986. Her vision for this collective of professional dance artists was to create new Irish dance works and to pioneer links with related art disciplines, such as music, art, poetry and sculpture. The company achieved high critical acclaim both in Ireland and abroad and was the recipient of the Nijinsky Medal from the Polish Artists Agency Warsaw (1990), the AIB Better Ireland Award for Arts and Culture (1992), and the ESB Environmental Awareness Award (1999).

In 1992, the company founded Rubato Community Arts Project in association with FÁS, which employed 14 artists to provide experiences of dance, music and painting for primary and secondary school children and to establish a role for artists in the community. Rubato Ballet was wound down in 2003, and a year later Quilligan continued her career as a freelance choreographer. More information on Fiona Quilligan and Rubato Ballet can be found at https://www.fionaquilligan.info/.