DU Dance has won an online competition to secure funding that will be put towards a new practice space after the spaces used by the society on campus had been repurposed or placed under construction, leaving the society with only one night a week to host classes.
Winning the competition, Linklaters’s Pitch Your Ambition Scheme, leaves DU Dance with £5,000 to be put towards the space.
“The only way to go on is to have our own space”, PRO of DU Dance, Keelin Shaughnessy, told The University Times in February, adding that the society would “hope to be empathetic and let other societies use it when we’re not using it”.
The society this year have only been able to offer one night a week for classes, compared to five last year, due to their lack of space.
“We were shocked at the reaction that we got because a lot of people didn’t know that this was happening”, Shaughnessy stated, referencing the competition. “Everyone we have come into contact with has been horrified by the idea that a dance team has nowhere to dance.”
In a statement to The University Times today, Shaughnessy stated that the society is “buzzing with this news”, praising Lauren Keogh, Treasurer of DU Dance, who entered the competition. “It is such an incredible feeling to have received support from so many groups on campus as well, who helped spread the word about our situation. Just hours before we heard, our Jazz team was in tears over a lack of rehearsal space. Now we are tearing up from how happy we are. This money is going to be so instrumental in finally giving DU Dance a permanent home and we are just so ecstatic!”
The society has been using the Lir, on Pearse St, with two hours of practice, split between different dancing styles, taking place on Wednesdays. With the Lir located about 20 minutes from campus, Shaughnessy notes that the society has had problems as “people didn’t know where it was, we kind had to walk people down there”.
Shaughnessy explained that the society had been forced to cut workshops until after intervarsities to let the teams train. Previously training in the Sports Centre, Shaughnessy noted that the intervarsity teams “have had to pay for their training spaces out of pocket, and not subsidised by the society, because there’s such a shortage of space”.
The society has held regular meetings with Trinity’s Central Societies Committee (CSC), who Shaughnessy described as “absolutely helpful” and “equally as frustrated” with the situation as DU Dance. The CSC booked the space in the Lir for the society and placed DU Dance on a vacant space scheme for venues within Dublin.
“The ideal situation is to not take money from the CSC”, Shaughnessy stated, referencing their hopes of winning the competition.
