Coming back to the body

OnTheTown: It takes two to tango, as the saying goes.

OnTheTown: It takes two to tango, as the saying goes.

Robert Connor and Loretta Yurick have lived the adage, having run their company, Dance Theatre of Ireland (DTI), for 16 years this June. Now, after a succession of big, high-tech productions, they have come back to the body, as Yurick said, with their production of Between You and Me, an international collection of duets at Dún Laoghaire's Pavilion Theatre.

Martin Drury, associate director of the Abbey Theatre, loves Connor and Yurick's work.

"I've seen everything they've done in the last 15 years," he said. When he's not tending to the dance side of his nature these days, Drury is working with writer Jim Nolan on his new play.

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After her stint as abbeyonehundred co-ordinator, Sharon Murphy looked hale and well on the eve of a trip to New York - for both business and pleasure.

"I'm taking six months out, and I hope to travel a lot," she said. She was guarded about her plans. What's in the future for her? "I'm not saying yet," she grinned.

As dancer, choreographer and artistic director of Irish Modern Dance Theatre, John Scott had just returned from a performance of his piece, It is better to . . ., at the Centre for Performance Research in Wales, where, he said, "it received a standing ovation".

Mairead Vaughan, whose choreography is influenced by India, is planning a site-specific dance event in Drogheda. Titled Cylinder, it will take place at the Martello tower overlooking the town.

Dublin Fringe Festival director - and dancer and choreographer - Wolfgang Hoffmann is still wading through applications for the festival. His wife, Fionnuala D'Arcy, was with him in Dún Laoghaire, but their nine-month-old son, Noah, was not present, no doubt conducting a dance of his own with a childminder.