Trinity Irish Dance Company Holds Annual Performance on April 22
Another Event on the Following Day to Go to Japan
Shakaela Carroll (C), a new member of Trinity, participates in St. Patrick’s parade in Kumamoto City in March, 2023.
With nimble steps, movements in perfect order and breathtaking performance, Chicago based Trinity Irish Dance Company brings its annual performance on April 22 at Auditorium Theatre from 7 p.m.
Trinity has had a long relationship with Japan and will introduce new dance pieces which are inspired by Japanese traditional arts. More information is available at https://auditoriumtheatre.org/events-details/dorrance-dance-trinity-irish-dance-company-m-a-d-d-rhythms/.
Trinity also holds a fundraising event on April 23 at Theatre in Lake from 2 p.m. Participants will be treated with performance by dancers and musicians of Trinity and guest performers including renowned tap choreographer Michelle Dorrance, Chicago tap activist Bril Barrett and American singer-songwriter Ike Reilly. Drinks and light cocktail party fare are also served. More information is available at https://trinityirishdancecompany.com/celebrate/.
Trinity’s Japan Tour
Trinity started its Japan tour in 2004 and has become the most popular Irish Dance Company in Japan. This summer Trinity is going to make its 8th tour in Japan, and Shakaela Carroll, a new member of Trinity, made a ten-day-media tour last March to promote the tour in advance. The media tour was sponsored by presenting agency Tempo Primo and TV Tokyo, and Shakaela visited five cities in Japan, participated in St. Patrick’s Day parades, gave interviews for magazines and TV stations. She also taught Irish dance classes in Tokyo, Kumamoto and Osaka.
Shakaela was born in Manchester, England, and her Irish parents sent her to an Irish dance school at age of six. Her elevation has already been recognized in the world.
Trinity returns to Japan tour for the first time in five years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so the members of Trinity are very excited. They will have 12 performances at 11 cities. The three-week-tour (June 26 to July 18) will start at Hakodate in Hokkaido and continues at Tokyo Musashino, Tokyo Shibuya, Sendai, Nagoya, Higashi Osaka, Shirakawa in Fukushima, Fukuoka, Kumamoto, Mie and Yokohama.
Trinity’s Friendship with Japanese People
Mark Howard and (L) his dance team visit Motomiya City in Fukushima to express their sympathy to the victims of 2011 Grate Earthquake and Tsunami.
Mark Howard, Trinity’s founder, Artistic Director and Choreographer, arrived in Japan for 2012 tour and was trembled all over seeing the cataclysmic change in the Tohoku area where 2011 Great Earthquake and Tsunami hit and devastated.
Arranged by agent Toshitake Nakamura, Howard and his dance team visited Motomiya City in Fukushima Prefecture and had a command performance for the victims of the disaster. They also visited the victims in temporary housing to express their sympathy.
Two years later, Howard and his team went back to Motomiya, taking some time off from their tour schedule, and reunited with the residents there.
In 2016 Japan tour, when Trinity arrived at City of Kumamoto to have their performance, a major earthquake hit the area, and then the performance was cancelled due to damages in a theatre where Trinity supposed to perform.
The members of Trinity exchange conversations with the audience in Kumamoto
Chelsea Hoy, Associate Artistic Director of Trinity, initiated a fundraising campaign to help rebuild the damaged theater. She eventually raised as much as $20,000, and agent Nakamura, along with his partner company matched the same amount.
With such help, the theater was rebuilt, and then Trinity had a command performance for the local people in 2018.
Popularity of Irish Dance has grown in Japan, and a number of Irish dance school has increased. Tomoko Shirasawa studied Irish dance in Ireland and then opened her own school “Ardagh School of Irish Dance” in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. Trinity and Tomoko, of course, became close friends and going to perform dance together in this summer tour at Yokohama.
About 20 students from Osaka’s dance school, where Shakaela taught in media tour, are going to join Trinity in its Higashi Osaka performance.
About Trinity Irish Dance Company
Mark Howard meets the students of Tomoko Shirasawa’s school “Ardagh School of Irish Dance” in Yokohama.
Founder Mark Howard, an Emmy Award-winning choreographer, started to learn Irish dance at age of eight and has won many titles including North America Irish Dance Championship.
Under Howard’s leadership Trinity is now a leading American Irish dance troupe that continues evolving while maintaining its roots in traditional Irish dance. It’s known for a breadth of celebrated dancers who have won world championships in Irish dancing.
Looking back to the past, Irish people endured hard times in the European history. One of Howard’s works is a piece called Black Rose. The title is from a nickname for Ireland which was used during the times of Irish resistance against the British. People called Ireland a “poor little dark rose.”
Irish dance used to be assumed as one of ethnic dances, it was not regarded as an art form. With his challenging spirit and open minded character, Howard absorbed aesthetic factors from other cultures into his choreography, created new dance movements and brought Irish dance on the world stage.
For example he paid his attention to stillness and motion in Noh play, traditional Japanese theatre, and its spaces between motions.
Based in Chicago, Trinity now has become a diverse, international dance company. Its members are from England, Mexico, and 12 states in the U.S.
The students of a dance school in Osaka where Shakaela taught Irish dance.
Chelsea said, “We are becoming more international, so we are proud to represent many different cultures while we are celebrating tradition of Irish culture.”
Trinity’s annual performance on April 22 and fundraising event on April 23, a dance piece “Communion” will be introduced. Chelsea said, “It is in part inspired by Japanese Noh dance and has a lot of silences and spaces that wouldn’t be typical Irish dancing.”
Another piece is entirely composed of rhythm. It was not directly inspired by Japanese taiko drumming, but Chelsea said, “Irish dancers are percussionists with their feet. Howard, our choreographer of this piece, integrated drumming with Irish dancing, and Original inspiration for it comes from watching the power of taiko drummers from Japan.”
Howard has already been selected as one of the top Irish Americans. He is going to be inducted into the Irish American Hall of Fame on April 27.
* All the photos in this page are courtesy of the Trinity Irish Dance Company