Eric FitzGerald chatted with Emma Martin, creator of Night Dances which brings gymnastics, disco, and hip-hop to Lime Tree with Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox providing an awesome soundtrack.
EMMA Martin’s journey from ballet dancer to groundbreaking choreographer has been anything but conventional. Having begun her career in ballet, she took what she describes as a “left turn” in her early twenties, seeking a new path that would allow her to create her own work.
“I could see my future in ballet—I was going to be doing the same thing every night,” she recalls. “I got cold feet and decided to take a break. That’s when I started training in drama and theatre with the idea of making my own work.”
Her first production debuted at the Fringe Festival in 2010, an ambitious show featuring live music, a large ensemble, and very little funding. It set the tone for the work she would go on to produce through her company, United Fall, which she founded in 2018.
Since then, she has blended dance with live music, theatre, and striking visual worlds, always with a raw, visceral movement style at the core.
Martin’s latest production, Night Dances, is a four-part performance playing at Lime Tree Theatre. The work is deeply personal, drawing on her childhood memories of experiencing dance in its most uninhibited form. One such memory remains particularly vivid.
“When I was 12, my 16-year-old brother told our parents he was staying at a friend’s, but he actually went to a rave in Dublin, where my cousin was DJing.
“My mother found out, and we drove to the crumbling SFX dancehall. I remember peering into a sea of sweaty, mostly topless bodies, lost in the music. It plays in my mind in slow motion—contorted faces, wrung-out bodies, eyes lifted to laser beams, sweat-drenched brows. I felt both terrified and exhilarated. This was dance, and it was beautiful.”
That electrifying experience planted the seed for The Raver, one of the chapters within Night Dances, created in collaboration with dancer Ryan O’Neill.
Collaborating with Daniel Fox
Girl Band (now Gilla Band) are one of Ireland’s most influential artists. Formed in 2011, the group gained recognition for their abrasive guitar work, driving rhythms, and frontman Dara Kiely’s raw, unfiltered vocal delivery. The band’s blend of punk, industrial, and experimental sounds influenced all that is great in the following generation of post rockers such as Fontaines D.C. and The Murder Capital.
Music has always been central to Martin’s creative process, and for Night Dances, she sought a sound that was anything but conventional.
Performing live on stage at Lime Tree Theatre will be Daniel Fox (Gilla Band), Jamie Hyland (Mhaol), and Brian Dillon (Meltybrains)
“I have been using Girl Band (now Gilla Band) music in the studio for years,” she explains. “I always work with music first, using playlists to help the dancers understand a certain energy I’m trying to capture.”
For this performance, she wanted live music to heighten the experience. Knowing Gilla Band’s sound was heavily influenced by dance music, she reached out to bassist Daniel Fox.
“I explained that I didn’t want this to be a polite theatre piece—I wanted it to be really brutal. And he was kind of hooked.”
Fox assembled a band for the production, drawing inspiration from a diverse range of music suggested by Martin. “There was an ease to working with him,” she says. “When he came into the room, the dancers were already there, showing him the movement phrases we had created, and the band just started playing. There was this incredible synergy from the beginning.”
What makes Night Dances unique is the interplay between musicians and dancers. “The band was creating music from the dancers’ movements, which isn’t something they’d typically get to do at a live gig.”
Breaking the fourth wall
For Martin, Night Dances is about dismantling the traditional, passive experience of watching dance in a theatre setting.
“There’s a real sense of freedom when you’re in a room with loud music and everyone is feeling something together,” she says. “I was irritated by how people sit so quietly at dance shows, almost with this fake village hall politeness. I wouldn’t mind if people stood up and started dancing.”
Musically, Night Dances appeals to a broad spectrum of audiences, from ballet enthusiasts to fans of techno, punk, and post-rock.
The choreography, too, is diverse, incorporating freestyle elements that blend gymnastics, disco, and hip-hop.
“There are different styles within the piece,” Martin explains. “The freestyle kids bring this wild, energetic mix. The Raver feels almost spontaneous and improvisational, but it really connects with people.
And then there’s the trio of women—their movement and bodies just exude this aura of pleasure. You have to have pleasure when you’re dancing.”
So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
“The bass is inescapable—you feel it in your whole body,” Martin says. “After the performance, people tell me they just want to go dancing.”
That, perhaps, is Night Dances’ greatest triumph. It doesn’t just invite the audience to watch—it dares them to feel, move, and immerse themselves in the raw power of dance and music.
