Cultural Connections celebrates dance in Dungannon

2nd July 2026

On Wednesday we were delighted to present a Cultural Connections event at @craictheatreni to celebrate the vibrancy of Dungannon and the local community.

The aim of the evening was meet other dance groups in the area, make connections and share in a celebration of culture and dance. Some participants had never danced or performed before – and they did brilliantly, supported by a very enthusiastic audience.

Thank you to all the dance groups who took part:

SUPERSTARS is a newly established group based at Dungannon Youth Resource Centre – and this was their first performance ever! Well done!

CRAIC YOUTH THEATRE’s resident group created a themed piece for this event called ‘Connections’ which was really special.

Two dancers representing DU Dance NI’s youth engagement project SUTEMOS blended movement familiar to their cultural background blended with their own dance interests in their performance.

A Polish language group from STEP Language School joined us and incorporated a creative workshop activity which our audience enjoyed joining in with.

Thirteen dancers aged 5 to 15 years from Lithuanian folk dance group SPIE?IUS performed two folk dances in beautiful costumes.

DANCE DYNAMICS, who are based in Stewartstown and run Ballroom Dancing classes across Mid Ulster, performed the Cha Cha and Waltz. What an honour just before they head to Blackpool to compete at World Championship level. Good luck!

ABCE (Association Bulgarian Culture and Education Children)’s folklore group shared traditional Bulgarian songs, dancing and instruments including the bagpipe!

After the wonderful range of performances everyone was given a certificates of participation, joined a ceili and enjoyed the chance to meet, chat and share dance stories over pizzas.

Thank you to CRAIC Theatre for hosting and to everyone involved for creating such a special CULTURAL CONNECTION including dance artists Sean and Ayesha who ran a number of workshops with some of the groups in the run up to the event.

Photo credit: Jim Corr Photography