Trinity Irish Dance Company defines cutting-edge dance performance at Fairfield University | Press Releases

Trinity Dancers The Trinity Irish Dance Company will kick up its heels and quickly dispel any stereotyped notions you may have about Irish dance on Friday, March 10, at 8 p.m. in Fairfield University's Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts. This production is part of the Quick Center's six-week, multi-event, Irish Arts and Letters Festival.

A uniquely Irish-American repertory company based in Chicago, Trinity was the birthplace of progressive dance performance and the first to make the leap from competition to a performance setting. Its choreography has inspired commercial productions such as "Riverdance," and "Lord of the Dance," yet Trinity is the seminal originator of Irish dance performance, defining the cutting edge of its genre.

Founded in 1990, Trinity continues to open up new artistic pathways, expanding the medium with all the passion, flair and precision that earned many of its members international acclaim. A professional company, the majority of its dancers came through the ranks of the prestigious Trinity Academy of Irish Dance in Chicago, the school that has seized an unprecedented number of gold medals for the U.S. at the World Championships of Irish dance held annually in Ireland.

Not content to simply be the world's best, Artistic Director Mark Howard has broadened the company's range and repertoire in a host of imaginative new directions. By using Irish dance as a metaphor, he crosses cultural boundaries, transcending craft to art, thereby creating a new vocabulary for Irish step dancing.

Howard, a former champion Irish dancer, has become America's premiere Irish dance choreographer, coaching United States teams to an unprecedented 12 world titles. He and his company have a mission to share the extraordinary movement of traditional and progressive Irish dancing with America and the world.

The Irish Festival is sponsored in part by: The State of Connecticut, Office of Policy and Management in conjunction with the Connecticut Commission on the Arts; Fairfield University's College of Arts & Sciences Humanities Institute; the American Ireland Fund; the Kevin Conlisk family; and, the Wild Geese, an Irish-American organization based in Greenwich.

Tickets for the Trinity Irish Dance Company production are $35 with discounts for students, seniors and groups. For more information, call the box office at (203) 254-4010 or toll-free at 1-877-ARTS-396.