Aoibhinn O’Dea is a choreographer and dance artist working across the contemporary dance and visual arts field. She graduated with a BA in Fine Art Sculpture (NCAD, 2014) where her practice evolved through installation, video and performance. She trained in contemporary dance and somatic movement in Berlin (Tanzfabrik, Marameo, Katapult and Ponderosa), Portugal (Preformact) and Ireland (Irish World Academy, Dance Ireland, Dance Limerick and CoisCeim). She has recently completed her MA in Contemporary Dance and Performance at The Irish World Academy of Music and Dance.
She teaches inclusive dance workshops across Ireland and collaborates with musicians, visual artists, other dancers and theatre makers as part of a longer-term project to develop the crossing of art forms to establish new ways of perceiving and making work.
O’Dea’s practice explores the effects normative social structures have on the body and seeks to challenge the conventional expectations around human interaction and behavior. Her work is often site-specific and takes place in public spaces, underpinning an interest in making dance practice and performance more accessible to a wider audience. She choreographed Norm, a site-specific performance involving 12 dancers, in response to the diminishing public spaces in Dublin due to prioritisation of multinational tech companies. Firstly, performed in Dublin city centre, at rush hour, at a busy intersection of O’Connell bridge, then performed at Richmond Road’s artist protest at Dublin City Council and Electric Picnic (2022). To date, her work has been supported by Visual, Carlow Arts Festival, Dance Limerick, University Concert Hall of Limerick, Temple Bar Gallery, The Complex, The Douglas Hyde Gallery, IMMA, Dance Ireland, Dublin FringeFestival and Glastonbury, among other venues and festivals. To date she has choreographed works such as Ancient Body (2023), Cruinniú na nÓg Carnival Parade (2022), Game Changer (2020), The World Outside (2020), Lord Hear Us (2020) and Why Knots (2019).