Unscripted and Unchoreographed

In this episode, we sit down with Ingrid Nachstern, Artistic Director of Night Star Dance Company, to go behind the scenes of her new award-winning film PINS IN HER EYES (2025).

We chat about the importance of the Income for the Arts scheme, her creative process, and the journey that brought her from translator and classical ballet teacher to internationally acclaimed choreographer, filmmaker, and performer.

Ingrid has created 15 works and four films (Table Manners/Stopping at Red Lights, Freedom—to go!, Shoe Horn/Office, and Pins in Her Eyes), which have been screened in New York, Los Angeles, London, and beyond—earning multiple international awards.

As Director, Screenwriter, Choreographer, and Performer, Ingrid’s work bridges dance, film, and performance art. Her career highlights include performing at DTW (solo work), MoMA New York (in Steve Paxton’s work), the Lincoln Center (with Buglisi Dance), as well as projects in Barcelona (BIDE), Buenos Aires (BAIDE), and more.

She has also served on the Experimental Jury for the Brooklyn Film Festival (2020–2023) and for Ethnografilm Paris (2020–2024). Splitting her time between London and Dublin, she now plans to spend more time in Paris—while still taking daily ballet class.

Tune in for a fascinating conversation with one of the most dynamic voices in contemporary dance and film.

Connect with us:⁠Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/confession_boxcollective/⁠Website⁠⁠: https://confessionboxcollective.com/⁠Facebook⁠: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562754885256⁠LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/confession-box-collective/Book a podcast recording with us: https://calendly.com/confessionboxcollective/pod-recording

On this week's episode we chat to Al Bellamy. Al Bellamy first became interested in challenging traditional direction methods with her debut production, Anne (Samuel Beckett Theatre, 2019) where she self-directed her foray into ethics and intimacy onstage. She spent some years engaging as Creative Producer and Production Manager for works such as DUBH (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2021), The Tolu & Feli Show (YouTube & Spotify, 2021), Tough Meat (YouTube, 2022). She first took the leap into Disability-Inclusive practice through Jody O’Neill’s What I (Don’t) Know About Autism (The Peacock Stage, The Abbey Theatre, 2021) as the captions operator, working closely with the cast and production team to ensure the production was fully captions-accessible. She followed this up as Production Manager on Aine O’Hara’s The Rest Rooms (Dublin Fringe Festival, 2022). She has also explored film mediums for her work, completing the X-Pollinator Elevator programme in 2021 with an honourable mention for her pitch, and was awarded the Project Arts Centre’s Short Cuts Award to produce and direct The Merrow in 2022. Al Bellamy’s directing credits include: The Amanda (Saoirse) Show (The DLR LexIcon Theatre, 2022) and Yellow written and performed by Jody O’Neill (Borris Festival of Writing and Ideas, 2022) and later performed by Eleanor Walsh (Draíocht Arts Centre in Blanchardstown, Granary Theatre in Cork, Neuroconvergence in Dublin, National Festival of Youth Theatres in Kilkenny, Bounce Disability Arts Festival in Belfast) from November 2022 to September 2024. She was Director and Co-Lead Artist with Jody O'Neill for Cork Midsummer & SUISHA Inclusive Arts Organisations' Be Part project in Cork Midsummer 2023, workshopping and creating a new script around the themes of disability justice with a group of disabled artists in Cork. She continued as Director of this production, Home Sweet Home, which premiered in the Granary Theatre Cork in Cork Midsummer Festival 2024. In 2022, Al Bellamy was funded by the Arts Council Agility Award for Mythics, creating a space for neurodiverse people to explore and discuss reworkings of Irish Folklore and Mythology. In 2023, she received the Arts Council Theatre Bursary to develop a holistic methodology for disability-inclusive productions. In 2024, she received an Arts Council Arts Participation Project Award for her project Home Sweet Home in Cork Midsummer Festival 2024. She also gave a Masterclass in Disability Inclusive Theatre to final year and MA Directing students in the Eduard Smilgis Theatre, Riga, Latvia, and created and led Embedding Access: A Workshop for Disability Inclusion in association with Draíocht Arts Centre for Dublin Fringe Festival 2024 and Cork School of Music. Recently, she has completed The Next Stage with Performing Arts Forum and Dublin Theatre Festival 2024.

On this week’s episode, we chat with Emma Browne – a ballet dancer, teacher, and the Founder and Principal of EmBrace Dance Academy.

Emma shares what it was like to move from Ireland to Russia to pursue ballet training after just two years of dancing, and the challenges and lessons that came with that experience. We also discuss the importance of creating a nurturing and supportive environment for students, and how that can shape their journey in dance.Trained in Dublin, St. Petersburg, and Brussels, Emma has toured with Swan Lake, performed on public stages and at private events, and even appeared on RTÉ television.

After facing ill health, she returned to Ireland where she qualified as a registered teacher with the Association of Russian Ballet & Theatre Arts.

Now, as a certified Progressing Ballet Technique instructor and Barre Fitness instructor, Emma is passionate about teaching through kindness, empathy, and encouragement — values that lie at the heart of her academy.

Connect with us:⁠Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/confession_boxcollective/⁠Website⁠⁠: https://confessionboxcollective.com/⁠Facebook⁠: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562754885256⁠LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/confession-box-collective/Book a podcast recording with us: https://calendly.com/confessionboxcollective/pod-recording

On this week's episode we chat to Jools Gilson, a Cork based dance artist who has been doing professional work for dance / theatre venues, galleries and broadcast radio for thirty years. Her practice is knotted, knitted and woven between the disciplines of dance theatre, writing and textiles; choreographies linked to ancient bog bodies and their textiles; 30,000 sewing needles hung from a gallery ceiling; stories about wars waged through embroidery. Recent awards include an Arts Council Dance Bursary (2023) and Science Foundation Ireland (Insight) Awards (2023 & 2024). Her large scale textile work The Knitting Map (2005) toured the US as part of the Mapping Climate Change exhibition from 2021 - 24; The Art Museum, West Virginia (2024), Wriston Art Galleries, Wisconsin (2023) and The Berman Museum of Art, Pennsylvania (2021). Recent performances include Mary Wycherley's Weathering at Dance Limerick (2023) and extracts from Tempestries at Reach '24, Arts & Sustainability Festival, Queen's University Belfast. She is Professor of Creative Practice at University College Cork.

On this week’s episode, we chat with Inma Pavon, a Spanish multidisciplinary artist, choreographer, and teacher based in Cork. We talk about her journey to Ireland—arriving first as an au pair before studying dance—and how her experiences shaped her creative path.

Inma shares how practices like breath work inspire her classes, and why she prioritizes letting each participant move at their own pace.

Her impressive background includes a BA in Physical Education (Granada), an MA in Contemporary Dance Performance (University of Limerick), and an MPhil in Creative Dance/Art Practice (UCC). She is a dance member of the International Dance Council UNESCO, an affiliate member of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dance (UK), and the director of InmaPavonDanceCo, where she teaches contemporary dance to adults.

Inma has been widely recognized for her work:

• Creative Dance Artist in Residence at the Rory Gallagher Music Library Cork (2023).

• Commissioned by the Glucksman Gallery UCC to create Art Movements, now part of the UCC Arts Collection.

• Selected for the Irish Choreographers New Work Platform (2007), mentored by Wendy Houstoun.

• Participant in Daghdha Dance Company’s Year-long Mentoring Programme, directed by Michael Kliën.

• Recipient of a Dance Ireland/Arts Council Bursary Award to develop new work with Amanda Coogan.

She has performed in major projects, including The Passing with Amanda Coogan at the RHA Dublin and Uillinn West Cork Arts Centre, and continues her collaboration with Robert Monaghan on Isolation, presented at LOOP Barcelona and CIACLA Los Angeles.

Beyond her solo practice, Inma has collaborated with a wide range of artists across disciplines, including Helle Helsner, Carolyn Collier, Mary Nunan, Brian Lane, Mick O’Shea, Danny McCarthy, and many more. Most recently, she created 24 Houses with the Quiet Music Ensemble, combining 24 A3 mixed-media artworks with a solo improvisation dance.

This episode is an inspiring look at how Inma blends performance, choreography, collaboration, and teaching into a deeply personal and community-rooted practice.

Connect with us:⁠Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/confession_boxcollective/⁠Website⁠⁠: https://confessionboxcollective.com/⁠Facebook⁠: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562754885256⁠LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/confession-box-collective/Book a podcast recording with us: https://calendly.com/confessionboxcollective/pod-recording

On today’s episode, we chat to Patrice Bowler, a Canadian multi-disciplinary theatre artist from Salt Spring Island, located off the West Coast of British Columbia. Patrice brings a dynamic range of professional experience across numerous facets of performance and creation, including movement direction, puppetry, intimacy direction, choreography, performing, production management, and teaching. They are particularly passionate about consent-based practices in devising and collaborative creation, with a strong focus on ensemble building and empowering others through physical storytelling. Whether working on new works or supporting the development of others’ visions, Patrice is committed to fostering creative environments grounded in trust, agency, and embodied expression.

In today’s episode, we sit down with Macha Shewolf – a neurodivergent, queer, multi-disciplinary ritual artist from Cork – to talk about her journey through creativity, challenge, and resilience.

Macha opens up about navigating the difficulties of studying in college while living with ADHD and dyslexia, and how these experiences have shaped both her perspective and her art practice. She also shares how motherhood has become a powerful source of inspiration in her work, and what she believes the government could be doing better to support single parents.

Her practice spans performance, sound, and film, rooted in radical and eco-feminism, indigeneity, ecology, and the persistent structures of capitalism and colonialism. Guided by intuition and lived experience, Macha’s work is embodied – delivered through movement, voice, sound, words, and the environments they inhabit.

Drawing on a background in folk and contemporary dance, circus, and music medicine, she continues to create work that challenges perspectives and invites us to reimagine presence.

✨ One of Macha’s guiding philosophies: “Conception to Death, the in-between is for Living.”

Topics we cover in this episode:

• Growing up and studying with ADHD and dyslexia

• The role of motherhood in shaping creativity

• The intersections of art, ecology, feminism, and ritual

• What single parents need from government support

• The challenges and resilience of being a neurodivergent artist

• Why presence is at the heart of her practice

About Macha Shewolf:
Macha completed her Honours BA in Visual Art in 2024. Her multi-disciplinary practice bridges film, performance, and sound, exploring new ways of being and creating in resistance to colonial and capitalist frameworks.
Connect with us:⁠Instagram:⁠   / confession_boxcollective  ⁠Website⁠⁠: https://confessionboxcollective.com/⁠Facebook⁠: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...⁠LinkedIn:   / confession-box-collective  Book a podcast recording with us: https://calendly.com/confessionboxcol...

On this week's episode we chat to Susie Lamb. Susie is an actor, writer, singer and performance working from Kilkenny and Dublin. She has acted in Theatres all over Ireland in conventional and unconventional spaces in both English and Irish. Recent acting credits include Sanctuary, A Witches Tale from AMC TV (2024); The Local, The Big Chapel (Asylum); The M House, National Tour and Dublin Theatre Festival (Equinox); Holy Father Little Ghost, BAI/KCLR and playWildParty (Watergate Theatre/Asylum Productions), both by Jeffrey Gormly. She has acted in Gillian Grattan's Decade of Centenary Radio Dramas as well as Hooked, Gúna and many others of Gillian's plays.

She is an experienced bi-lingual Voiceover artist: Daphne, Scooby Doo (Warner Brothers); multiple shows on TG4; Cartoon Saloon's recently released Eriú.

Susie’s one woman performances, which she writes and produces, include The Waiting, scheduled to be performed in The Project Cube in 2026, and Horae performed in Complex Theatre, Carlow Visual and Nest Festival, Kilkenny. Songlines, written with longterm collaborator Jeffrey Gormly and performed with Kate Powell was presented in a work-in-progress stage for culture Night 2024.

Susie tailors her creative response to the needs of each performance context working with a diverse range of people, timelines, organisations and funding structures, to support both her own work and the development of the theatre eco-system in the SouthEast. In 2014 she co-created and co-produced NEST festival with Niamh Moroney to create space and dialogue for female-led work. In 2016 she co-created and produced HATCH in Visual Carlow which was a networking and performance platform for South East Based Artists.

This week, we’re joined by Martha Tribe, a contemporary dance artist whose work explores the intersection of movement, environment, and geography. Originally from South East England and now based in Dublin, Martha shares how their background in folk dance, classical ballet, and somatic practices has shaped their choreographic voice.We talk about:How Martha’s love for the environment influences their choreographyThe role of geography and philosophy in danceNavigating life as a freelance performance artist across the UK and IrelandThe importance of fair treatment and research in the dance industryHighlights from performing at venues like The Royal Opera House and The Linbury TheatreTheir upcoming 2025 return to Oxford University for a lecture-demonstration🎓 Martha graduated with First-Class Honours from the Rambert School and has performed in works by Adrian Look, Faye Tan, Jason Mabana, and Darren Ellis. They were part of the 2023 restagings of Class by Sir Robert Cohan and Entity by Sir Wayne McGregor.💬 Whether you're a dancer, choreographer, or simply curious about the creative process behind movement, this episode offers rich insights into how space, place, and practice come together in contemporary dance.

Connect with us:⁠Instagram:⁠ https://www.instagram.com/confession_boxcollective/⁠Website⁠⁠: https://confessionboxcollective.com/⁠Facebook⁠: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61562754885256⁠LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/confession-box-collective/Book a podcast recording with us: https://calendly.com/confessionboxcollective/pod-recording

On this week's episode we chat to Dr Tanya Dean, who is a Lecturer and Programme Coordinator for the B.A. (Hons) in Drama (Performance) in the Technological University Dublin Conservatoire. She completed her Doctor of Fine Arts with Yale School of Drama in 2016, where she also received her Master of Fine Arts in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism in 2011. Tanya has worked extensively as a freelance dramaturg on numerous scripts, workshops and productions in Ireland, the UK, the USA, and Iceland. Tanya is a board member for Rough Magic Theatre Company, and from 2015-2017, Tanya served as a committee member for #WakingTheFeminists, and was a Research Associate on the report, Gender Counts: An Analysis Of Gender In Irish Theatre 2006-15. From 2020 to 2021, Tanya served as one of the judges for the Irish Times Irish Theatre Awards. She is currently the Script Associate for the Abbey Theatre, Ireland’s national theatre.