JUNK ENSEMBLE
Junk Ensemble is a multi-award winning Dublin-based dance theatre company founded by twin sisters Megan Kennedy and Jessica Kennedy. The company is committed to engaging diverse audiences through the creation and presentation of brave, imaginative and accessible work that sheds light on important human issues relevant to society today. Current Associate Artists at Project Arts Centre and previous Artists-in-Residence at The Tate, Junk Ensemble has built a reputation as one of Ireland’s leading voices in dance. Junk Ensemble frequently collaborates with artists from other disciplines to produce a rich mix of visual and performance styles that challenge the traditional audience/performer relationship. This approach has led to productions being created in non-traditional or found spaces as well as more conventional theatre spaces. The company often work directly with communities in the creation and performance of their work. Their work has toured to New York, Europe, UK & Ireland.
Junk Ensemble recent productions include Powerful Trouble (Dublin Theatre Festival 2023), Ritual (Cork Midsummer Festival 2023), Dances Like a Bomb (Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2023/Dublin Dance Festival 2022), The Cold Sings (Dublin Theatre Festival 2022), Crossing Skin (Cairde Sligo Arts Festival 2022), The Misunderstanding of Myrrha (Dublin Dance Festival 2021/Mermaid Arts Centre 2020), The Veiled Ones (Baboró International Arts Festival for Children 2021/Dublin Fringe Festival 2021), A Different Wolf (Cork Opera House/Cork Midsummer Festival 2019), The Bystander (Dublin Theatre Festival 2018), Dolores (Dublin Dance Festival 2018), Man at the Door/Cork Midsummer Festival 2018), Soldier Still (Irish Tour 2018/Belfast Festival/Dublin Fringe 2017).
Choreography for film includes It Is In Us All (dir. Antonia Campbell Hughes), The Tower (dir. Jesse Jones), Wildfire (dir. Cathy Brady), In Velvet (Junk Ensemble), Five Letters to the Stranger Who Will Dissect My Brain (dir. Oonagh Kearney), Fallow Table (Junk Ensemble). Choreography for theatre includes The Last Return (Druid Theatre), What Did I Miss (The Ark).
http://www.junkensemble.com
JESSICA KENNEDY
Jessica Kennedy is an award-winning choreographer, movement director and dance artist based in Dublin. She is Co-Founder and Co-Artistic Director of Junk Ensemble, an internationally acclaimed & leading Irish dance-theatre company. Jessica trained in the United States, Dublin and London, completing a Bachelors Degree in Dance & English Literature in London. She has performed extensively with dance and theatre companies throughout Europe and the U.K. including Blast Theory (UK), Retina Dance Company (UK), Tanz Lange (Germany), Firefly Productions (Belgium). Jessica has choreographed & collaborated on numerous international opera, theatre, dance & visual art productions and has worked regularly in Scotland as a movement director for productions with The Tron (Glasgow/Beiing). She has both performed in and choreographed for numerous short & feature films in Ireland, and also works as an intimacy coordinator for film. Jessica co-created the multi-award winning short film ‘Motion Sickness’ which has screened across festivals worldwide and was awarded Best Female Performer for Dublin Fringe Festival 2006. She has lectured at various universities in Ireland and is part of an all-female experimental electronica group ‘Everything Shook’.
MEGAN KENNEDY
Megan trained at Alvin Ailey Dance Center in New York City and received a B.A. Honours from Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh. Megan is Co-Artistic Director of multi-award winning Junk Ensemble, previous resident artists at The Tate and creators of Dances Like a Bomb and Powerful Trouble. Choreography for live performance includes The Last Return (Druid Theatre), Portia Coughlan (Abbey Theatre, dir: Caroline Byrne), Red Lines (Dublin Fringe), What Did I Miss (The Ark, dir: Sean Dunne), Fleeting (Seve Feathers, dir: Megan Kennedy), Gym Swim Party (O’Reilly Theatre Dublin), Villette (West Yorkshire Playhouse), Town is Dead (The Abbey Theatre), Tasting Blue (Live Collision), Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades Opera (Edinburgh Festival Theatre), Marble & Bread (Dance Limerick).
For film, choreography and performance include Wildfire (Samson Films/dir: Cathy Brady), It Is In Us All (dir: Antonia Campbell Hughes), The Tower (dir: Jesse Jones), In Velvet & Fallow Table (Junk Ensemble), 6SKIN (dir: Alice Maher & Aideen Barry), Five Letters to the Stranger Who Will Dissect My Brain (dir: Oonagh Kearney), The Wake (dir: Oonagh Kearney), Óiche Nollaig na mBan (RTÉ), Wonder House (Dublin Film Festival), Her Mother’s Daughters (Winner Best Actress Capalbio Festival Italy/dir: Oonagh Kearney). Megan has performed with Retina Dance Company (UK), Brokentalkers (The Blue Boy, On This One Night) (IRL), CoisCéim Dance Theatre (Faun, As You Are) (IRL), The Abbey Theatre (Romeo & Juliet) (IRL), Loosysmokes Aerial Company (IRL), Tanz Lange (Germany), Blast Theory (UK), Bedrock Productions (IRL) and productions for The Ark and The Pavilion (IRL). She is a Fellow of Salzburg Global Seminar.
