Darrah Carr
Associate Professor of Dance
Director of the Conservatory of Dance
Darrah Carr holds a PhD in Dance from Texas Woman’s University. She received her MFA in Choreography & Performance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University with a double major in Dance and the College of Letters. Named one of the “Top 40 Under 40” by the Irish Echo, one of the “Top 100 Irish Americans of the Year” by Irish America Magazine, and one of the “Most Influential Women of 2010,” by the Irish Voice, while being celebrated with the 2020 Artist Honoree Award by Irish Arts Center, Dr. Carr has been active for thirty years in both the Irish and modern dance communities as a choreographer, dancer, writer and educator.
More About Me
She is the Artistic Director of Darrah Carr Dance - a Bessie Award nominated Irish dance company that has created a unique blend of traditional Irish step and contemporary modern dance since 1998. Her work has been hailed by The New York Times as, “Carr is a smiling, exuberant performer with an open upper body and fast-flying feet straight out of Irish step dancing … Her immensely likable and skillful dancers move with a space gobbling buoyancy and openness that looks as if they might take flight.” The company incorporates Irish music, step dance footwork, and spatial patterns within contemporary choreography and presents a bold new twist on conventional Irish dance. To describe her choreographic vision, Dr. Carr has coined the term ModERIN: a playful combination of the words modern (dance) and ERIN (an Irish American reference to Ireland).
Darrah Carr Dance’s performance highlights include: “Good Morning America,” “The Today Show,” The New York Pops at Carnegie Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center, “Victory Dance” at The New Victory Theater, “The Yeats Project” at the Irish Repertory Theatre, The Duke Theater on 42nd Street, Celebrate Brooklyn, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, MASS MoCA, The Yard at Martha’s Vineyard, and the Bank of Ireland Arts Centre and Project Arts Centre in Dublin, Ireland. The company tours nationally on the roster of Siegel Artist Management. And, they present their Arts in Education and Community Outreach programs through the roster of Young Audiences New Jersey. Since 2008, the Irish Arts Center has frequently presented the company’s annual New York City Season. In 2022, Darrah Carr Dance was commissioned by the Irish Arts Center to collaborate with the Seán Curran Company on an evening length work to celebrate the Opening Season of the their new $50 million dollar venue in mid-town Manhattan.
In commemoration of the company’s 15th Anniversary season in 2013, Macater Press published ModERIN: Contemporary Irish Dance Works - Darrah Carr Dance. This impressive artist’s catalogue documents the company’s lasting impact on the field of Irish dance and features stunning images and in-depth descriptions of their major repertory works. The company’s trademark aesthetic has been praised by The New York Times as, “Carr imaginatively blends Irish dance with modern dance. She and her company present a program of fast-paced, buoyant dances,” and, “Irish culture embraces the world in works by Darrah Carr, who can choreographically blend Irish step-dance footwork with barefoot modern dance techniques and various forms of tap and clogging.”
In addition to her work as the artistic director of Darrah Carr Dance, Dr. Carr and her Irish step dance partner, Niall O’Leary, have performed their duet act in a wide variety of locations ranging from Disney World to the Osaka Festival Hall in Japan. They are featured dancers in Absolutely Irish! - a PBS documentary directed by Academy Award- winner Paul Wagner with a cast of traditional Irish musicians led by Dr. Mick Moloney. The New York Times hailed their performance as, “Other standouts were Darrah Carr, a radiant performer…she has a terrific chemistry with her longtime partner, Niall O’Leary.”
Dr. Carr is a respected scholar and has presented her research at the Dance Studies Association, the National Dance Education Organization, the World Dance Alliance, Dance Research Forum Ireland, the Popular Culture Association, and New York University’s Percussive Dance Symposium. She has contributed numerous articles to Dance Magazine, Dance Teacher, Dance Spirit, Dance Studio Life, Dancer and The Dance Insider. Dr. Carr has also authored chapters for “Close to the Floor: Irish Dance from the Boreen to Broadway,” and “A Life in Dance: A Practical Guide.” For five years, she was the appointed External Examiner for both the Irish Dance and the Contemporary Dance BA programs at the University of Limerick, Ireland. She has served as a peer reviewer for the Journal of Dance Education since 2022. And, she has been Vice President of the Irish American Writers & Artists Association since 2023.
As an educator, Dr. Carr has been an adjunct faculty member in the Dance departments of Hofstra University and Rutgers University. She has been a guest artist at Adelphi University, Manhattanville College, and Queensborough Community College. And, she has given lectures at Hunter College, Sarah Lawrence College, Wesleyan University, New York University’s Ireland House, Montclair State University, Eastern Connecticut State University, Texas Woman’s University, St. John’s University, Ballet Tech, Ramapo College, Kingsborough Community College, Union County Vocational and Technical School, and Toledo Ballet School.
Dr. Carr is currently a tenured Associate Professor in the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College where she has the distinct honor of serving as Director.
For more information, please visit:
www.siegelartist.com/darrah-carr-dance