Ellis-Parr's Night at the Museum

In October 2015, Troupe Ellis-Parr were commissioned to take part in the Celts: Art and Identity exhibition at the British Museum, one of the world's oldest museums. This was the first major exhibition to examine the full history of Celtic art and identity and was organised in partnership with the National Museum Scotland. The first mentions of 'Celts' was recorded over 2,500 years ago and the exhibition tells the fascinating story from that moment to now, exploring all the current day comptemporary Celtics influences.

Troupe Ellis-Parr was asked to perform for this exhibition as part of the British Museum Friday Lates programme, where it hosts late night openings for its exhibitions and even has performances that compliments them taking place throughout the evening. 

Our dancers started off the evening in full competitive costumes to greet the visitors to the glass domed Great Court as they arrived for an evening full of various performances that showed all sides of Celtic culture. The visitors were amazed with the beautiful costumes with many of them requesting photos with our girls!

Then, as the sun  set and the Great Court's glass ceiling darkened along with the sky, it was time to get ready for our performance. People started to gather around our stage ready for the kick off at 7.30pm. As the troupe started with our Breakout routine the crowds contiued to grow, with many people having to watch from the staircase that overlook them to get a better view! We performed a number of routines to demonstrate traditional and more comtemporary styles of Irish Dancing. The crowd were cheering and clapping along with the music and they were disappointed when it all came to an end. 

The feedback received from the many visitors that approached us after the performance and from the British Museum management was amazing. So, we can safely say that everyone invovled had a brilliant time. 

We would like to thank the British Museum for inviting us to take part in such a wonderful event and of course our dancers and parents for their continued support with events such as these. Without you, none of this would be possible!

Hopefully, this is just the start of many more similar performance to come!