Trauma and Turbulence

At some point, dance professionals move away from dance. Only a few remain in the field after their stage careers; they find work in dance education, choreography, through their own schools, or remain close to the theater—as coaches, for instance. Those who leave the theater continue to use their bodies—in the best-paid cases in medicine. Others work in therapeutic professions, osteopathy, Pilates, yoga… Another sought-after group also works in health—specifically in mental health. Conflict management is the name of the game. Northern Irish dance professional Dylan Quinn completed his peace and development studies in Castelló de la Plana, near Valencia in Spain despite the fact that there are plenty of courses in conflict studies available in the United Kingdom. After hundreds of years of colonial history, England knows very well what colonialism, i.e., artificial borders and artificial nationalism, can do.

After training at the renowned Northern School of Contemporary Dance in Leeds, Quinn soon became involved in initiatives such as “Theatre in Prisons and Probation,” “ActionAid Ghana,” and “Peace Education” in Sheffield. A dancer who may not be able to heal with dance, but who wants to achieve something more than just applause or admiration.

Shortly after completing his studies, he returned to his hometown of Enniskillen in Northern Ireland, a good 130 kilometers from Belfast and no great distance from the green border with the Republic of Ireland. This border, which runs right across the island, makes it seem as if Ireland is a divided country, as Germany once was. As a teenager in the 1980s, Dylan Quinn experienced what is known here as “The Troubles”: bombs exploding in his small town, a state of war between Irish people. Northern Irish against Irish. Here, the so-called poor Catholics; there, the supposedly wealthy Protestants. A conflict that never really developed into a full-blown civil war because too few people were willing to bash each other’s heads in before a peace deal was reached in 1998. Dylan Quinn quickly realized the impact that this division, this segregation, had on people—and continues to have today. Borders are poison, he says. Just like nationalism. Since then, he has been working locally to brew an effective antidote. From pure dance.