Dancer and Choreographer, Lapree Lala, centre, Karen Aguiar, Creative Director of Go Dance for Change (left), singer AIS and dancers Vithoria Escobar, Eloy Quezada, South Side Moves, Ethereal Danza, World Fusion Crew and more at rehearsals for Breaking Codes. Photo: Leon Farrell
AIC Scheme Bursary Award 2022 Recipient (Collaborative Arts and Dance): Karen Aguiar
News
Create and Dance Ireland are delighted to announce Karen Aguiar as the recipient of the 2022 AIC Scheme Bursary Award: Collaborative Arts and Dance.
Karen Aguiar is a migrant woman, journalist & socially engaged artist believing in the transformative power of dance to unite people and nurture a collective space to build power from and of the people. Karen is the Creative Director of Go Dance For Change and envisions it as a space for meaningful integration and collective action.
Starting in 2018, Go Dance For Change is a cross-cultural collaborative platform that produces social spaces using dance as their primary tool to connect people through a variety of immersive and engaging dance-related activities such as programmes, workshops, parades, performances and events sharing culture, promoting health and integration through dance. Go Dance For Change places a strong emphasis on well-being, community building and female empowerment with the aim to highlight diverse cultures and their people in the hopes of decolonising the narratives within the dance scene in Ireland.
Karen intends to use the time afforded by the Bursary to nurture a self-reflective practice; to map her durational relationships with communities, safeguarding those networks of support and relationships; and to develop artistic and collaborative skills with the support and mentoring of a number of artists, including Evelyn Broderick, Kevin Murphy and Fringe Arts Project Manager Bee Sparks.
The AIC Scheme Bursary specifically aims to support an individual professional artist working in collaborative socially engaged arts practice. The purpose of the award is to support and nurture professional arts practice; the bursary of €10,000 provides the selected artist with time and resources to carry out research and to engage with and reflect on their practice. More particularly, it allows the artist to consider key questions associated with their dance practice using collaborative methodologies.
