New Prodance season – September to December 2021

Curated by Ryan O’Neill, Maiden Voyage Prodance returns for Autumn/Winter 2021 with a range of Contemporary, Ballet and Conditioning sessions.

Following a consultation with regular particpants we will be offering six online classes via zoom and six live classes at the Crescent Arts Centre.

Online classes are only available to block book and you will also get a catch up recording of the class for a two week period. The cost is £15 for all six sessions.

Live classes are bookable individually at a cost of £5 per session. These have limited capacity due to covid regulations and are available on a first come first served basis. Booking for each live class we be released a week in advance.

Online Classes

10.00am – 11.30am via Zoom –Book

Live in studio Classes

10.00am – 11.30am at Crescent Arts Centre

A limited number of bursary spaces are available for dance artists experiencing hardship due to the pandemic. Please contact nicola@maidenvoyagedance.com in confidence should this apply to you.

Professional Ballet class with Clare Novaes
Tuesday 7th December 10.00-11.30
Crescent Arts Centre

Prodance promo image

Clare’s class is a healing mixture of conditioning exercises and technique formulated with the classical ballet structure in mind. It addresses and respects the complexities of the body as we change with age, injury and workload. The body’s natural intuition is encouraged through careful attention to alignment and energy flow.

Clare enjoys the classical aesthetic values of simplicity, purity and balance in ballet. She is the owner and teacher at The Clare Novaes Ballet School established 1998 and director of Ballet Retreats. Her first job after graduating from The Royal Academy of Dance in London was at Crystal Palace London, teaching the Olympic high board diving squad a continuous body conditioning ballet barre created by John O’Brien. At RAD Clare worked with Dr Ann Hutchinson Guest, the director of the Language of Dance Centre, London on Laban notation and used this research when teaching dance in Brazil, South America. Returning from Brazil Clare was inspired by John Blacking at QUB to study Anthropology with Ethnomusicology. Clare worked with the highly skilled multidisciplinary team at Blackstone Physiotherapy and Sports injury clinic to develop a Barre Tone class. She also worked with Clare Guss-West at the RAD developing dance and lifelong wellbeing.

Clare was a dancer in Boots, real woman 40+, as they unveiled the New Global Brand Direction with Alessandra Ferri as headliner.

“I continue to develop my own relationship with dance and explore movement with the aging body” Clare Novaes

Professional Contemporary Class with Ian Garside
Tuesday 16th and Tuesday 30th November 10.00-11.30
Online via zoom

Physiological training from a dance perspective, aiming to harness and refine an all-round availability for a multitude of movement potentials. The class embarks upon a sustained development of physically intense movement patterns and sequences that start on the floor and gradually build to upright locomotion and eventually explosive jumps and inversions.

Ian Garside (UK/ES) discovered contemporary dance through classical theatre. He completed his vocational training at Laban (now Trinity Laban UK) & P.A.R.T.S. (BE). Since 2010 he has performed with the likes of Punchdrunk (Shanghai), Liquid Loft/ Chris Haring (Vienna) & the seminal DV8 Physical Theatre (London). Alongside performing, Ian teaches extensively. His passion for pedagogy is fed by the variety of experiences and approaches that people bring to the encounter. His passion for performing comes from a desire to engage people in an experienced process of reception and reflection.


Professional Contemporary Class with Sandy Cuthbert
Tuesday 9th November 10.00-11.30
Crescent Arts Centre

Sandy will teach a release-based class with a somatic sensibility. Focusing on breath, the use of the weight of bones and muscles and connection to skin. Exploring through our interceptors, exteroceptors, proprioception and our special senses. As we move back into the dance studio, we can take the opportunity to re-engage with our body and spatial awareness, ourselves and other. Imagery and finding a sense of flow and connection within the space will be a feature of the movement and choreography.

Sandy has a background in contemporary dance and movement improvisation. BA (hons) Creative Arts, PGCE, Post-graduate Certificate in Contemporary Dance & Choreography-London Contemporary Dance School. Professional dancer-National Dance Company of Wales, In Transit, Maiden Voyage Dance, Off The Rails. Over 20 years FE & HE dance lecturing experience. Sandy has an MA in Dance and Somatic Well-Being and is a professional member of ISMETA-Registered Somatic Movement Educator. She has a curiosity and interest in combining her loves of movement, mindfulness, art, design and the natural world

Professional Ballet class with Vasiliki Stasinaki
Tuesday October 19th October 10.00-11.30
Crescent Arts Centre

In this ballet class we will focus on the use of the upper body and on musicality but also on the strengthening of the core and the legs. We will use ballet technique as a base, focusing on how we can utilise the knowledge it can offer us as contemporary dancers. We will go through the traditional barre exercises and then move to the centre and we’ll work on our balances and port des bras without needing too much space. The aim is to remind ourselves of the beauty of ballet and get a full bodied workout.

Vasiliki is a dance and visual artist based in Belfast. She studied at the Greek State School of Dance, the Greek National Ballet School and at Northern School of Contemporary Dance. She has been performing with the Maiden Voyage since then and a selected artist on both their Match Make and a Resi-dance programmes 20-21. Vasiliki has also worked with Greek National Ballet, Ludus Dance, Pair Dance, Dylan Quinn Dance Theatre, Springs Dance Company, Company Philip Connaughton and Tinderbox Theatre Company. Vasiliki holds an MFA in Fine Art from Belfast School of Art, Ulster University.

Flying Low with Lucia Kickham
Tuesday October 12th 10.00-11.30
Online via zoom

Lucia teaches a class that takes Flying Low as a base and incorporates it with other floor-oriented techniques and release work. The class builds from gentle exercises which examine the spiral patterns within the body and it develops into more energetic and expansive sequences. Being grounded, efficiency of movement and open awareness are important elements at play in this class. Each of these aspects can be explored in a very functional way while we find ourselves dancing in our home environments.

Lucia Kickham is a Dublin-based dance artist, who has been performing and collaborating internationally since 2011. Trained in The Netherlands, she has worked with companies and artists which include TRASH(NL), Liz Roche Company, Philip Connaughton, junk ensemble and Maria Nilsson Waller. Lucia has undertaken intensive training with David Zambrano in Flying Low & Passing Through and has a keen interest in group dynamics within improvisation, composition and teaching environments. In recent years she has been a recipient of awards from the Arts Council of Ireland, Dance Ireland and Tyrone Guthrie Centre. In 2020 she was awarded a Next Generation Award to develop her practice. Lucia was Dance Ireland HATCH Artist 2018 and is an Associate Artist with Liz Roche Company 2018/21.

Professional Contemporary Class with Suzannah McCreight
Tuesday October 5th 10.00-11.30 via zoom
Tuesday 14th December 10.00-11.30 live at Crescent Arts Centre

The class will draw on Suzannah’s background in Limón technique influenced by release-based approaches. She works with sensing body connections as a way into movement and exploring sequences that involve using weight, breath and fluidity.

Suzannah discovered contemporary dance through the Cornwall Youth and National Youth Dance Companies. She trained at Laban gaining a BA (Hons) before joining Transitions Dance Company in 1997. She went on to dance for Scottish Dance Theatre with Janet Smith, and danced for Attik, Springs, Cathy Seago and Maiden Voyage Dance. Suzannah returned to Laban (now Trinity Laban) in 2000 to study choreography at MA level under Ana Sanchez and Rosemary Butcher. She also joined the faculty, teaching technique and movement analysis. She has worked as a Rehearsal Director for BareBones and Maiden Voyage Dance and has had choreographic commissions from Maiden Voyage, Springs Dance and Terra Nova.

Professional Contemporary Class with Ryan O’Neill
Tuesday 21st and Tuesday 28th September 10.00-11.30
Crescent Arts Centre

Ryan’s class incorporates his recent training in Garuda and opening the muscles and joints to create a free body with an emphasis on the macro and micro details of internal and external space we inhabit.

Ryan achieved a first class honours degree in Dance from the Ulster University and studied his Masters in Dance Performance at Trinity Laban as part of their professional post graduate company Transitions. Since then Ryan has worked with Maiden Voyage Dance, Off The Rails, ponydance, Tinderbox, Primecut, Oona Doherty Works (NI), Irish Modern Dance Theatre, Junk Ensemble, Pan Pan Theatre, Company Philip Connaughton, Coisceim, Liz Roche Company (IRL) Gwyn Emberton Dance (UK) and for two years with Punchdrunk for Sleep No More in Shanghai. Ryan is also a qualified Ashtanga Yoga teacher. 

Professional Contemporary Class with Omar Gordon
Tuesday September 14th 10.00-11.30 & Tuesday November 23rd 10.00-11.30
Online via zoom

Omar’s class focuses on activating and investigating the body’s range of movement through set technical exercises that have been designed to challenge and engage the participants, both mentally and physically. The class works progressively towards a final movement combination that incorporates all components that have been worked on during the class.  

There is strong emphasis on empowering the participants to feel brave and dare to go beyond their limits. There will be talk of discovering textures and qualities through a vocabulary of imagery and physical states 

Omar has had an extensive career spanning almost 30 years. He trained as a classical ballet dancer at the Central School of Ballet in London. On graduation he joined the Northern Ballet Theatre in Leeds, under the direction of the late Christopher Gable, and over 6 years rose to the position of Principal Artist.  

In 1998 he transited into contemporary dance and moved to Italy to join the prestigious Aterballetto Company under the direction of Mauro Bigonzetti.  Two years later Omar joined the Lyon Opera Ballet working with revered choreographers, such as William Forsythe, Ohad Naharin, Mats Ek, Maguy Marin, Angelin Perljocaj and Jiri Kylian. 

 In 2004 Omar returned to the UK as an independent artist working often with The Royal House ROH2 alternative stage, Covent Garden for their contemporary dance programs, The Glyndebourne Opera’s ‘A Fairy Queen’, and television, music videos and film work, such as Anna Karenina (Working Title Films) with choreography by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Channel 4’s Random Acts.

As a guest artist, Omar has performed with Northern Ballet, The State Theatre Of Northern Greece and Gallim Dance Company, New York City. He also created and performed in the critically acclaimed dance theatre production, ‘LOL’ Lots of Love for Protein Dance (Luca Silvestrini). 

Omar was resident ballet master and dancer with the State Theatre of Bern, Switzerland from 2008-2009 dancing and assisting choreographers Hofesh Shechter, Alexander Ekman and Hans Van Manen. It was during this time that he began to expand on his knowledge of designing a teaching system to help assist and support classically trained dancers on how to adapt themselves into contemporary dance and technique.  

Since 2013, Omar has worked on two major productions with PUNCHDRUNK Theatre, firstly in London with ‘The Drowned Man; A Hollywood Fable’, and SleepNoMore, Shanghai, China. As an assistant choreographer/rehearsal director he has worked with companies such as Geneva Ballet, Switzerland, The Slovakian National Ballet, Skänes Danseteater, Sweden and Ballet De Monte Carlo’s Romeo & Juliet for Northern Ballet.  Last Autumn, Omar participated in the epic 12-hour Live streamed episode ‘The Third Day: Autumn‘ starring Jude Law, and produced by Sky Studios, Plan B Entertainment and PUNCHDRUNK Entertainment, which won the prestigious RTS Programme Awards for best Live Event 2021.