WE ALL KNOW about the great leveller that is an Irish wedding dance floor. Everyone is their best dancing self at a wedding. No judgement, no right and no wrong, just dancing. 

When people approach the Dance Corner and say “Ahh sure I can’t dance” I make it clear “There is no wrong dancing on the Dance Corner … there is only dancing.” 

Most people know the old adage “dance like no one is watching” but many do not know that it’s part of a longer quote:

“You’ve got to dance like there’s nobody watching, love like you’ll never be hurt, sing like there’s nobody listening, and live like it’s heaven on earth.”

It is a call to self-expression, an invitation to act without fear of judgment. 

Dance Corner was created very much in this vein. With the intention and drive to provide an open space for people to come together and dance like no one is watching … even though admittedly it is placed in public spaces: 26 locations over 32 days across the province of Ulster. 

I have worked as a dancer, choreographer and facilitator for almost 30 years, after many years of dancing, I returned to education, to undertake Peace and Conflict Studies, during this time myself and my then girlfriend, now wife, discovered that we were having a baby, the first of four, leading us to return to my home place of Fermanagh. 

The Northern Ireland I now experienced was different to the one I had left.

The Good Friday Agreement of 1998 had changed the landscape. However, whilst the heavy lifting of political change might have been achieved, even if in a very unstable way, achieving successful community transformation and cohesion was, and remains, a different process altogether.

Build up to the 12th

As we enter another annual “marching season” the people of Northern Ireland are as always aware of the chaos that has blighted our summer months in years gone by.

The established unrest between the two “traditional” communities has, however, given way to a more internationally ‘all too common’ form of disruption. That is created by those who demonstrate their feelings about ‘other’ people making this place their home. 

Whilst the rise of nationalism, the sort that excludes those ‘others’ has been on the increase across Europe for many years, Ireland had mostly escaped this.

That has — in recent years — changed. Immigration and migration play their part, however, it is also possible that nationalist identity issues: green, orange and indeed white, were “occupied” by events in Northern Ireland until 1998. 

The unintended consequences of resolving a political issue without doing the same for community needs: culturally, socially and economically, have fostered a slow continual boiling of distrust, disquiet, and disfranchisement. The energy produced from this has been directed elsewhere, towards the ‘other.’ 

If we wish to be a dynamic creative, productive and inclusive society, we have to demonstrate that we are. Demonstrations of such must not only take place in closed temples of creativity and performance.

It is vital that we enthuse our streets and communities with a positive sense of collective being. With shared forms of non-competitive community engagement that help us celebrate and enjoy being ‘us’ in collective creative ways. 

Dance Corner does just that. It could have taken place in one location, however with the complex and conflicted nature of Ulster’s history, I wanted to reach out across the province.

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To visit every county, to dance from each body of water through towns, villages and cities. To dance with people in their space and in our shared place. To provide a collective opportunity for non-judgemental, fun-filled engagement. 

As I write this we are halfway through our Dance Corner tour and the experience has been one of joy, laughter and dancing.

From beaches to boulevards, town centres to town parks, we have twisted, turned, jived, jiggled, bounced and bopped.

We have had young and old and all in between, we have danced with people on the Dance Corner, in their cars, in their wheelchairs, in their buggies, and even in the Atlantic Ocean.

We will hit the road again in August and if you do want to join us for a dance there’s no previous experience required, but if you’ve been to a good wedding that might help!

Dylan Quinn has worked as a professional dance artist for over 17 years and as a lecturer on a Peace and Community Development. 

His Dance Corner Project visited Cavan, Donegal and Monaghan last month and will continue across the remaining six counties of Ulster next month. It’s part of To This I Belong – an all-island commission by Luail – Ireland’s National Dance Company, and the calendar is available here.