We are thrilled to introduce the talented creative team working on Creating a Climate for Change. This initiative aims to promote behavioural change, just sustainability transitions, and climate literacy through easy-access creative media in the form of audio, visual & movement stories.
Our team, comprised of passionate and skilled artists and researchers, is dedicated to making a positive impact on our community and environment. Throughout 2024 they are working with Moyross Sport and Physical Activity Hub, Moyross Community Hub, Watch House Cross Library, Limerick City Library, and Croom Family Resource Centre with weekly and monthly workshops in their communities.
Roberta Ceginskaite
Roberta Ceginskaite is a dance artist who was born in Lithuania in 1996 and along with her family, moved to Ireland in 2005. After finishing her Leaving Cert from St.Louis Secondary School, she studied Dance Education for two years at Inchicore College of Further Education in Dublin. During that time, she was also part of the Dublin Youth Dance Company, who regularly performed in Dublin. In 2021, she completed her Bachelor degree in Contemporary Dance from Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Tilburg, The Netherlands. Throughout the 4 year study, she has participated in many dance and theatre workshops, created her own work and cocreated and collaborated with others in productions by international dance artists. After graduating, she had a month-long residency from Routa Company in Kajaani, Finland to create her own work in collaboration with four other dancers, which will continue to be developed in Luxembourg as part of Trois C-L residency in April 2023. Since moving back to Ireland, she has been a participant of Step Up Dance Project 2022, organised by Dance Limerick. Her own work has taken her to residencies in Zurich (Switzerland) in the frame of Blickfelder Festival, which is an arts festival for children and to a rural residency in Serbia.
She has been awarded the HATCH mentorship award by Dance Ireland, as well as obtaining Agility Award 2022 from Irish Arts Council to work on her collaborative installation. She has also secured a 2 week Percolate Residency from Dance Limerick for June 2023 and week long dance residencies at both the DanceHouse in Dublin and Galway Dance Project. Recently, Roberta has performed her solo titled Spoonful at What Next Dance Festival organised by Dance Limerick. Roberta is currently a Master’s student at University of Galway, studying Digital Art, Design and Cultures.
Gülfem Cevheribucak
Gülfem is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Limerick, Department of Politics and Public Administration. Her research interests include comparative public policy, climate governance, and sustainability transitions. She obtained her master’s degree in European Studies from the University of Florence and completed her undergraduate studies in International Relations at the University of Hacettepe, Ankara. She is a member of the Development Studies Association of Ireland- Climate and Development Study Group. She is also tutoring for the modules of Introduction to Public Administration, Public Policy and the Environment at UL. Gülfem has previous experience in policy analysis and public-private partnerships within national and international projects. She is currently working on the project “Local government and sustainable urban mobility” which is funded by the H2020 GoGreenRoutes and the Government of Ireland Higher Education Authority. GoGreenRoutes is an EU-funded project that implements nature-based solutions such as green corridors and shared walkways in pioneering cities. It aims to enhance the physical and mental health of urban residents by maximizing the availability of public spaces. Hence, people can have access to active travel modes and green spaces to enjoy their free time in urban areas. Gülfem’s current research focuses on the relationship between local government autonomy and sustainable urban mobility transitions within multilevel climate governance frameworks. It investigates the impact of autonomy on the competencies and capacities of local authorities.
She is analyzing the political, administrative, and fiscal limitations of local governments through comparative case studies in Ireland and Sweden. The empirical analysis includes two cities, Limerick (Ireland) and Umeå (Sweden) which participate in the H2020 project GoGreenRoutes to create ‘Urban Labs’ with the objective of promoting urban health and well-being. Her research contributes to the localization of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of ‘Climate Action-SDG13’, ‘Good Health and Well-being-SDG3′, and ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities-SD11’.
Vanessa Grasse
Vanessa is a dance/multidisciplinary artist and audio story collaborator from Italy, based in the UK/IT. She creates site-responsive and outdoor work blurring the boundaries between choreography, walking-art and Land Art; as a vehicle for immersive embodied engagements with public spaces and landscapes. She specialises in ecological, improvisational, participatory and cross-disciplinary approaches. Her work ranges from live performances, audio guided experiences and interactive installations. She is interested in our relational and entangled nature with environments, with human and non-human communities. Her outdoor choreographic works have been commissioned by several festivals and institutions, and have toured across the UK, Europe and East Asia. She has also been in residency in several visual art settings including Yorkshire Sculpture Park, The Hepworth Wakefield and 4Bid gallery in Amsterdam. Her work is socially engaged and politically relevant. With Mesh (2016-2020) – an urban promenade performance in response to global divisive political climates – 10 dancers and a community cast invited audiences to physically join the collaborative choreographic formations. Mesh was ACE funded and supported by Yorkshire Dance, Dance City, Activate Performing Arts and commissioned by The Great Exhibition of The North, performing amongst others at Gwacheon Festival in South Korea, Freedom Festival Hull, Light Night Leeds, UK Dance Showcase.
Her current umbrella project The Land We Are responds to the climate crisis by offering activities in woodlands and green spaces, inviting positive deep ecological connections with natural environments. The project was selected for Leeds Dance Partnership Artist Fellowship and The Dance Partner Project at Yorkshire Dance, it received ACE funding and a co-commission by Badischer Kunstverein in Germany and Sanafest in Norway, to be developed into two choreographic works for woodlands: Woven Land (audio guided choreography) and Meander (interactive performance); integrating choreography with poetry, research into tree ecology, Land Art and sound art, to create rituals of ecological and social interconnectivity in a period of climate, health and social connectivity crisis.
Katy Hewison
Katy Hewison is the DL.Bridge Artist at Dance Limerick. She relocated to Limerick from Yorkshire (UK), where she pioneered ‘Improplay’– an innovative research, workshop, and performance project which focusses on bringing together young children, dance artists and educators in creative and reflective spaces to explore the effects of dance improvisation on learning. Her work uses contemporary dance to co-create with communities to investigate learning and audience experiences – this has been supported by Arts Council England, Leeds Inspired, Leeds Dance Partnership and Yorkshire Dance. Her work has been programmed at multiple local and national festivals, highlights of which include; The National Children & Their Grown Ups Showcase, Hullabaloo Theatre’s Outdoor Festival in the Park and Intergenerational Ageless Festival by Yorkshire Dance at Leeds Playhouse. Katy developed a series of workshops with Improplay dance collaborators and musician Wilfred Kimber, which were delivered at early years settings, primary schools and intergenerational family settings across Yorkshire, and earned Scope Charity’s Inclusivity Activity Award in 2021.
Katy graduated at degree and master’s level from Northern School of Contemporary Dance in 2018 and has since toured performances internationally with; VERVE (UK, Malta & Germany), Vanessa Grasse’s MESH (South Korea & UK), Mirjam Gurtner’s PLAY (Germany & Switzerland), Northern Rascals, Akshay Sharma and Rachel Dean’s THUMBELINA. She has shared the joy of dance with all ages whilst volunteering in Greece UNICEF schools and refugee camps with ‘The Flying Seagulls’ Project and has delivered educational programmes for various organisations; Northern Ballet, Northern School of Contemporary Dance, Rural Steps Youth Dance Companies and at La Casa di Elisa (Italy).
Ciara Moynihan
Ciara is an experienced regenerative development practitioner, organisational development and sustainability consultant, and facilitator of community climate action. She works to unlock the regenerative potential of organisations in partnership with living systems. The common theme of her work is on evolving organisations to serve the future needs of people and places. She has experience working with a diverse range of organisations and communities on climate action and sustainability from indigenous tribes and non-profits in Aotearoa, New Zealand to national and local government; as well as youth in Germany; and is currently working with older communities in the west of Ireland. Ciara facilitates restorative circles for culture change, storytelling, and is a passionate poet and writer on societal transformation and regeneration. She combines her creative practices in movement, writing and poetry with systems thinking and regenerative development frameworks to facilitate embodied change for future generations.
Ciara holds a BCom in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management from the University of Auckland, as well as a Diploma in Languages, German and Spanish. She is a certified Regenerative Practitioner by The Regenesis Institute.
Mike O’Brien
Mike O’Brien is a visual/multidisciplinary artist based in Limerick. Working in fine art drawing, his work has engaged with the public during the last 15 years. His artistic practice explores how a range of creative mediums can intersect and be encountered by the public for lasting impact. The content of his work is a continually intuitive response to the human condition, described as figurative expressionism. This approach creates a large scope of connection points for audiences encountering the artistic work.
Since 2009, exhibitions have included solo shows, group shows and public performance pieces, spanning Ireland, London, Prague and New York. Including The Hunt Museum and Limericks Museums former Franciscan Church Space in Limerick, plus Perla National Gallery of Art Prague.
Katy, Vanessa, Mike, Roberta, Gülfem and Ciara work alongside Emer Casey, who looks after Communications & Project Co-ordination Support. The project is produced by Dance Limerick supported by Mary Wycherley, Director of Dance Limerick, and Leonor Miralles, Communications Co-ordinator at Dance Limerick.
Main image: Some members of the Creating a Climate for Change in Limerick team. Photo credit Maurice Gunning.
