Exploring the relationship between live music, dance and film has been a key part of Light Moves Festival festival since 2014. In 2021 the festival launched Spiral, a series of new music and dance commissions that has resulted in over twenty artists creating new works that were presented in a variety of contexts including at Light Moves, other festivals and once off performances.

Spiral is funded by the Arts Council’s Commissions Award – Music, Opera, Festivals.

Spiral at Light Moves Festival 2025

GROUNDWORK
Péist, Aoibhinn O’Dea & Billy Kemp
Thursay 6 November 2025
Dance Limerick

Building towards collapse only to build again, this performance brings together Limerick-based improvised noise group Péist and artist Billy Kemp. GROUNDWORK unearths an interdependence between sound, movement and live-visuals, moving through fleeting moments of unity and discord. Taking their name from the Irish for ‘worm’, Péist’s improvisations use synthesisers, electro-acoustic instruments, and purpose-built software to wriggle and writhe between sounds and musical forms, burrowing through the dirt. Péist – Sounds | Aoibhinn O’Dea – Movement | Billy Kemp – Live Visuals.

SPIRAL DOUBLE BILL
Friday 7 November 2025
Dance Limerick

Radio Caroline and the Mi Amigo
Cindy Cummings and Sebastian Adams

Using dance, video collage, DIY radio transmitters and portable radios, composer, viola player and artistic director Sebastian Adams and dance artist and choreographer Cindy Cummings navigate the spiritual legacy of Radio Caroline in a live, improvisational, experimental documentary. Radio Caroline was founded by an Irish businessman in order to circumvent the BBC’s broadcast monopoly and refusal to play modern pop music. The solution: a radio station in international waters. It became a beacon for pirates everywhere, a kick in the face to the copyright system, but also a money-making venture motivated more by opportunism than by ideology. As the old systems for policing and managing intellectual property and freedom of speech collapse around us, the voices of pirates are nowadays attempting not only to wrest media from the grips of their owners, but also to fight against new apparatus for mass surveillance.

AUTOMATA: A Myth Reawakened
Jessie Thompson and Natalie Beridze

Where myth meets Music. Automata brings ancient legend into the digital age. Created by a pioneer of electronic music and one of Georgia’s most acclaimed composers, Natalie Beridze, and Jessie Thompson, a Dublin-based dancer and choreographer working at the intersection of contemporary and hip-hop, this performance draws inspiration from the mythical creations of Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire and forge. Automata explores the beauty, intelligence, and destructive potential of beings built to serve, yet driven by something more. Through live electronic music and physical storytelling, the show conjures a world where creation slips out of its maker’s control—and chaos follows. A bold fusion of mythology, and live performance, Automata invites audiences into a realm where the ancient pulses with new life.

 

Spiral at Carlow Arts Festival 2023

Sunday 11 June 2023
O’Hara’s Pavilion, Carlow Arts Festival

Outdoor, afternoon performances in Carlow by artist duos Bryan O’Connell and Nick Bryson, Jürgen Simpson and Angie Smalis, and Jenn Kirby and Isabella Oberländer.

Spiral at The Castle: Dublin Fringe Festival 2022

Spiral at Light Moves Festival 2021

Thursday 23 September 2021
Dance Limerick

Opening Light Moves Festival 2021, New Jackson, musician David Kitt’s electronic music alter ego, performed with digital artist Tim Redfern and dancer Salma Ataya to create a unique live audiovisual experience fusing dance, holographic video, and electronic sound with an additional performance by Somadrone (Neil O’Connor).

Saturday 25 September 2021
Dance Limerick

Performance by acclaimed British electronic artist Beatrice Dillon. Described as ‘the most thrilling new artist in electronic music’ by the Guardian, Dillon performed live with visuals by experimental digital arts studio Werkflow. The evening also featured a performance by Pauric Freeman integrating live electronic music with real-time digital video explorations of dance movement.

Spiral in the City

Also part of Light Moves Festival 2021, four outdoor Spiral events criss-crossed Limerick city bringing adventures in sound and movement to Colbert Station Plaza, The Hunt Museum Garden, The People’s Park and Mount Kenneth Skateboard Park. The performances were developed in collaboration with electronic music group Dublin Modular.

Friday 24 September 2021
The Hunt Museum, Garden

Aoife De Mille, Duncan Murphy & Pauric Freeman

Friday 24 September 2021
People’s Park

Aoife De Mille, Tadgh Kinsella & Lara Gallagher

Saturday 25 September
Limerick City Skatepark

Gareth Anton Averill & Duncan Murphy

Saturday 25 September
Colbert Plaza

Gareth Anton Averill, Lara Gallagher, Tadgh Kinsella, Angie Smalis & Isabella Oberländer.