DCU announces EMERGENCE Dance Residency artists
Subhashini Goda and Tara Brandel have been selected as the recipients of the EMERGENCE Dance Artist Residencies, an initiative led by DiChiaro in partnership with DCU’s Institute of Climate and Society. The paid residencies provide Irish-based dance artists with dedicated time and space to develop their practice, undertake artistic research and explore new work without the pressure of producing a public outcome.
The programme forms part of a 18-month engagement and dancer support residency led by Mia DiChiaro, bringing communities across DCU and the communities within DCU together to explore themes around climate through the practice of dance.
The EMERGENCE residencies provide artists with access to studio space at DCU, a participation fee, and additional access support, alongside opportunities to connect with researchers at DCU’s Institute of Climate and Society. The initiative was designed to support artists from across Ireland, with additional slow-travel and accommodation support available to selected artists based outside Dublin.
Speaking about the residencies, DCU Dancer in Residence Mia DiChiaro said:
“The initiative creates an important space for artists to explore the relationship between movement and some of the urgent environmental and social questions facing Ireland today.”
DCU Cultural Arts Officer Marcella Bannon said:
“EMERGENCE is an important part of Mia DiChiaro’s 18-month residency with DCU. Through her residency, Mia has created opportunities for communities on DCU’s doorstep and the communities within DCU to come together and explore climate through dance. Extending this support to artists Subhashini and Tara further reinforces how powerful dance can be in communicating climate action.”
Interdisciplinary dance artist Subhashini Goda, based in Louth, will explore the relationship between movement, textiles and land. Her research will consider global systems of production and consumption, including labour, clothing waste and the environmental impacts of mass production, bringing questions of slowness and decoloniality into dialogue with the movement vocabulary of Indian dance.
Goda is an interdisciplinary dance artist and academic specialising in Bharatanatyam. She has received multiple awards, including the Emma O’Kane Bursary, Dublin Fringe Festival Weft Studio Bursary and Síolta from Galway Dance. She is currently SDC Intercultural Artists’ Network Coordinator at Rua Red, an Associate Artist at Solstice Arts Centre, and organiser of Creative Brew at An Táin Arts Centre.
The second residency will be undertaken by Tara Brandel, a queer neurodivergent award-winning choreographer, director, contemporary dancer, and aerialist from West Cork. Brandel will use the residency to explore a new project ‘Talamh Slán’ examining the impacts of ‘land reclamation’ in rural Ireland, including the loss of native woodlands and boglands in the context of the beef agri-industry. 2026 is the `International Year of Women Farmers’, and in her week of research at DCU she will be looking at how she might include women farmers in this project, and what she might learn from them.
Brandel has been making work extensively since 1990 in London, Berlin, San Francisco and Ireland. She holds a BA in Dance Theatre and an MFA in Interdisciplinary Performance and is the Co-Artistic Director of Croí Glan Integrated Dance. She has developed an Environmental Dance training on West Cork beaches, boglands and native woodlands, which allows participants to develop an embodied visceral understanding of the importance of these ecosystems.
The EMERGENCE Dance Artist Residency is supported by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon and DCU’s Institute of Climate and Society.