LAURA SARAH DOWDALL
Dance Artist Residency 2026
I’ve been selected as one of six artists nationally for the Arts Council’s 2026 Dance Artist Residency Scheme, in partnership with Dublin City Council, Fighting Blindness and The Gate Theatre.
It feels like a significant next step for Running Blind, which I founded in 2015 and have developed through long-term grassroots collaboration with people who are blind, members of the deafblind community and people living with vision impairment.
Creative audio description, haptic communication, touch, sound, text and multisensory approaches have grown organically through that collaboration and have long been embedded within the artistic language of the work. This residency is not the beginning of that practice. It gives me the time, space and professional resources to bring an established body of research and methodology into its next phase.
I’ll be working with community participants, professional performers and artistic collaborators to develop new work in an integrated professional setting. I’m interested in how these established tools can deepen and evolve when supported by a wider creative team, partner organisations, a theatre environment and technical resources
Connecting the Residency with My Wider Practice
My wider practice moves across contemporary dance, performance, directing, dramaturgy, audio description, inclusive and socially engaged work, immersive performance and interdisciplinary collaboration. Over the past few years, much of my work has had a strong site-specific focus, with productions created in forests, coastal landscapes and Victorian houses. My most recent project, Outside Our Door, was an immersive walking performance exploring the history of Dún Laoghaire’s former Magdalene laundry.
I’m excited to return to a rehearsal room and to bring the research, practice and methodologies developed through Running Blind into a professional theatre context. The residency creates space to connect those strands of my practice, while keeping collaboration, trust and access at the centre of how the work is made.
I look forward to sharing what emerges and presenting the work in development through a public sharing at The Gate Theatre later this year.
What the Residency Will Develop
• Advance Running Blind’s established access-led methodologies within a professional development context.
• Deepen the relationship between movement, text and creative audio description.
• Extend the use of haptic communication, touch, sound and multisensory orientation as choreographic tools.
• Bring community participants and professional performers together within an integrated creative process.
• Explore how a theatre, technical resources and a multidisciplinary team can expand the scale and possibilities of the work.
Partners and Support
The residency is supported through the Arts Council’s Dance Artist Residency Scheme and delivered in partnership with Dublin City Council, Fighting Blindness and The Gate Theatre. Disrupt Disability Arts Festival provides additional in-kind support.
Follow the Process
I’ll be sharing moments from the workshops, creative development and rehearsals as the residency unfolds.
Visit Running Blind's Website
Discover Running Blind’s pioneering inclusive dance work, developed with people living with sight loss for over a decade.
My Instagram
Follow my wider practice across dance, performance and creative collaboration, alongside moments from the residency.
Running Blind's Instagram
See the work in action through workshop highlights, community stories and behind-the-scenes updates.