The Erick Hawkins Dance Company, founded in 1951, has been touring the world since the 1960’s. With unwavering integrity and uncompromising working methods, Hawkins choreography is based on a collaboration of music, art, and dance. His dances are performed to live music often composed especially for each dance along with commissioned sets by artists and sculptors. Known for a fluid, effortless style of movement, each dance is energetic yet poetic, serene yet harmonious. Hawkins technique emerged from an intense examination of the principles of dance. Hawkins felt the whole approach to the principles underlying Western dance were based on erroneous concepts pertaining to how one perceives the body and its relationship to the world. Insights into Zen philosophy and the essence of Haiku poetry caused Hawkins to begin to experiment with the principle of immediacy in dance, exploring movement for the sake of beautiful movement, implicit and pure. Hawkins recognized the importance of these basic premises in determining patterns of thought and action. Influenced by Eastern philosophical ideas and kinesiology, Hawkins new beliefs about movement, nature, and man guided his search for new ways to train the body. He sought a “Normative Theory” normative meaning the best standard one can set up through intelligence and perception. Synthesizing the Eastern thought of a potentially harmonious relationship of man to nature and the value of Western scientific thought in relation to art, Hawkins felt that the quality of dance must be effortless in order to achieve a oneness of body and soul. Hawkins revolutionary “free flow” technique emphasizes awareness of weight, placement, impulse, effortless flow, and alternative possibilities of movement dynamics. Because the technique releases tension in the body, not only is more energy available to develop strength and movement flexibility, but also intellectually it frees one to think about what one is doing. Erick Hawkins understood beauty. It is the concept that underlies his technique and choreography described by Charles Reinhart at the 1988 Samuel H. Scripps American Dance Festival Award for Lifetime Achievement as “virtuosity without effort.” The Company continues today to develop dances based on Hawkins pioneering movement theory, which harmonizes body, mind, and spirit.
 
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D’amby Project
“A unique genre, a collaborative choreographic vision that draws from traditional structures of Irish step dance and contemporary inspiration.” Quiedo Carbone, Co-Artistic Director, Ulster Ballet Company.
 
“Watching them perform will make you glad you are alive.” Elaine Colandrea
 
“…their versatility and skills are some of the best I’ve ever come across – honestly fantastic.” – Bridget Madden, Ireland-based Professional Dancer/Choreographer
 
Pronounced “dee-am-bee”, this company affords a safe, private environment and outlet for artists and all kinds of creators (photographers, videographers, musicians, dancers, painters, inventors, etc.) to hone their skills and talents, often collaborating and utilizing one another in their efforts.
 
Centered around the art of dance, The D’amby Project offers technical classes in both traditional Irish dance and Contemporary dance. Students meet anywhere from one day a week to five days a week, depending on the individual schedules of each student. We know life can be busy! And we want you to have the flexibility that you desire when becoming a member of the project!
 
Here at the Project, we host what we like to call, “freeflow sessions” which are highly advanced sessions of choreography and creation. In these sessions, each dancer hones in on their skills, perfecting their own art. Each dancer contributes to the sequences and choreography that is built, and then each dancer is encouraged to perform, with full credit to their work. We also host in equal ratio, technical classes, where we focus on the very demanding and rigorous technique that Irish dance demands, and do many drills of different movements both in the Irish and Contemporary realm.
 
Additionally, The D’amby Project hosts monthly workshops with a master in a particular field, to further the education of the students and develop their skills on working with teachers who are not their own.
 
The D’amby Project is at its core, a place where one can come to feel safe, challenged, nurtured, and above all, inspired.