“Get Together” is a collaborative project that brings together people with Down Syndrome and established artists in various art forms. The project is designed to explore creative dance, drama, visual arts, and music.
The goal of the project is to provide opportunities for individuals with Down Syndrome to engage in artistic expression and to promote inclusivity and diversity within the arts community. By collaborating with established artists, the project aims to facilitate the sharing of ideas and techniques, and to encourage experimentation and innovation in the creative process.
“Get Together” aims to offer more than just activities for individuals with disabilities; it strives to provide a truly professional art experience by collaborating with renowned artists in Ireland.
Guest Artists:
Monica Munoz
Monica Muñoz is a dance artist originally from Barcelona and based in Dublin since 2014.
She graduated at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen/Germany and completed an MA in Dance Education from the Frankfurt University of performing Arts. As a dancer she worked for over 20 years throughout Europe and performed across the globe with choreographers and companies such as: Tanztheate, Heidelberg-Freiburg , Cie Toula Limnaios, Rui Horta, Joachim Schloemer, Cie Drift, Konstantinos Rigos among many others. In Ireland, she has collaborated frequently with CoisCéim Dance Theatre.
She was selected from the international dance magazine Tanz Aktuell “Young Dance to Watch” in 2002. She received the Docklands Arts Funds from Business to Arts to bring access to dance to schools from the Docklands area. She created Groovy Movers, a dance participation program of intergenerational dance supported by Dun Laoghaire County Council. Her dance show for young audiences, Princesses Can Be Pirates, toured nationally to 12 venues supported by the Arts Council, and to Germany supported by Culture Ireland. She was selected by The Ark to participate in their Creative Europe Project PUSH +. She has received a commission from Tipperary Dance to create a new dance work for school audiences: UP-CLOSE. Along her choreographic work she facilitates dance in education and community settings such as: Creative Schools Programme, Dance Ireland, Dance Theatre of Ireland and the BA of Contemporary Dance at the University of Limerick. Currently she is the third John Coolohan Early Years Artist at The Ark
Patrick Stefan
Patrick stefan is an award-winning Irish/Dutch songwriter from Co. Clare & Dublin who released his debut album Wayfare in September 2022, an urban-folk document of Patrick’s unique & colourful travels from Scandinavia, Brazil, to west Africa and back home.
A once-Fulbright scholar, Patrick opted to follow the path of his father’s folk-singing- footsteps after building up an impressive list of collaborators like Niwel Tsumbu, rising stars Aby Coulibaly & Monjola, fiddler Martin Hayes (with the award-winning instrumental group Ensemble Ériu), Loah, Lisa Canny, Fehdah and 2017 Eurovision winner Luisa Sobral.
After racking up 400k+ streams on ‘Superman’ – a star-studded 2020 soulful collaboration featuring Uly & Rob de Boer Patrick was tipped as by the likes of Nialler9, The Last Mixed Tape, and BBC’s Across The Line for his unique sound.
In 2022 Patrick opened concerts for Niamh Regan, Gemma Dunleavy, Kean Kavanagh & Melina Malone, and was supported by Music Network & the Arts Council.
Bianca Gannon
Described by JOLT as “redefining the idiom”, Bianca Gannon is an Irish interdisciplinary art music composer and improvisor. Weaving together her extensive training in composition, improvised music, piano and Indonesian percussion, her works are often immersive, multi-sensory, and investigative with social commentary. Passionately exploring parallels between seemingly disparate concepts, Bianca is inspired by that which connects us.
Bianca’s free improvisations and instant-compositions traverse time, form and genre. The other-worldly extended harmonies and tunings of solo simultaneous piano + gamelan + singing bowls create an ethereal lyricism layered with meditative pulsating difference tones. Unique timbres, ritualistic rhythms, jazz and post-classical references resonate in an expansive timelessness. Bianca has toured this solo work across Australia, Europe and North America and has been selected by Improvised Music Company as a 30/30 Artist – one of Ireland’s outstanding Improvisors. JOLT have described her as “one of Australia’s rising jazz stars” and Australianjazz.net as “breaking barriers”.
BAN BAM Awardee (Composition), Pythia Prize Winner (Composition) and 2020 Artist in Residence with the City of Greater Dandenong, Bianca’s work has been presented internationally by leading ensembles including loadbang, Ensemble Offspring, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), the Australian Art Orchestra, and the Irish National Concert Hall Gamelan with Elizabeth Hilliard.
Michelle Mc Bride
Michelle Mc Bride graduated from the National College of Art and Design in 2017 in Fine Art Media. She has since been awarded the Kildare County Council Arts Service Emerging Artist award, exhibited at The Science Gallery Dublin, organised and participated in a number of group visual art exhibitions and continues to work with youth arts groups in County Kildare. She is a founding member of the Kildare Art Collective and the Creative Director of Kildare Yarn Bomb. Her work focuses on community, environmental and societal concerns through the use of everyday objects and thorough research.
In addition to being a practising artist, Michelle is also holds a hDip in the Science of Digital Marketing and regularly assists fellow artists in producing artist statements and submitting funding applications. You won’t find much of her work on social media as her main focus to date has been in the field of education. With the exponential growth in the online world, her aim is to achieve global online domination in the field of Social Media! For now, the best place to find out what projects Michelle is actively working on or has under her belt, check out her artist and digital marketing portfolios.
Alessandra Azevedo
Alessandra Azevedo is an Afro-Brazilian dancer, Capoeira performer & instructor from Salvador, Bahia – home to the largest African diaspora population & Afro-Brazilian culture.
Her practice is rooted in body movement to promote connections and cultural education, driven by the potential of her African Brazilian heritage and using dance as a tool to achieve it.
Since moving to Ireland in 2015, she has worked with Catherine Young, John Scott, Selma Daniel, Andreia Williams, Barra O’Flannaigh, Yves Lorrhan, Tatiana Campelo, Shiv Ross, Vivian Brodie Hayes, Justine Doswell, Deirdre Murphy, Simeon Smith and other artists since coming to Ireland. Alessandra is using her current Arts Council Bursary award to contemplate and deepen her skills as a performer & facilitator to establish herself as an ambassador of the Afro-Brazilian culture in Ireland.
Along with her dance group Criola Dance, Alessandra shares styles from the many African dances that were developed as a form of personal and artistic expression in areas where the diaspora settled – many rhythms and dances developed from these roots that still echo the strength, culture, resilience and beauty of African communities.
Mark Ball
Mark Ball is a theatre-maker and the Artistic Director of Super Paua, a company that makes theatre and art for young people. Mark’s work is often multilingual and multidisciplinary and involves audience participation and engagement. Mark’s practice asks participants to question what they know and how they’ve come to know it; surprises and delights them with their own natural curiosity, creativity and humour, and that of their peers; and creates space for them to harness this to lead their learning and creative ideas to connect in a new way.
Mark completed Artstrain a Level 7 in Drama Facilitation and Youth Arts in 2017. Mark has facilitated workshops with over a thousand young people across the country with Riverbank Arts Centre, Mermaid Arts Centre, Hawkswell Theatre, Roscommon Arts Centre, axis: Ballymun, Draíocht Arts Centre, the Abbey Theatre, the Ark Children’s Cultural Centre and Mother Tongues.
orlaith ni chearra
Orlaith Ni Chearra is a theatre maker and performer from Ireland. She trained at London Studio Centre on a Leverhulme Scholarship graduating with a BA hons in Theatre and Dance. Her work is multi-disciplinary with strong storytelling at the core. Music, movement, song and dance feature heavily in the theatre she creates. In 2016/2017 she worked with Pickles Theatre Company devising and performing in two new shows (On the Docks & Glendalough Mystery), touring them around Europe for 8 months. Returning to Ireland she was awarded a Cross border cultural bursary from Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company in Derry and in the last two years she has been working as a freelance artist in Galway with Macnas, Bloc TG4, The Galway Theatre Festival, Fíbín, Brick Wall Theatre Company, Dance Players, Beluga Theatre and An Taibhdhearc. Orlaith is also one fourth of the collective Fizz and Chips Theatre Company and in February 2019 they brought their Musical show Dragon to Smock Alley in Dublin as part of the Scene and Heard Festival. Over summer 2019 Orlaith will be developing a new theatre show for young audiences; “Stuck in The Mud” as part of Branar’s Tiny Shows scheme.
The project has been made possible through the funding from Creative Ireland, and support from Kildare County Council and Down Syndrome Ireland. Their funding and support have enabled the project to provide resources and opportunities for the participants to fully explore their artistic potential.
