About
Running Blind Dance offers a visceral dialogue of the senses, an immersion into a tactile, imagined and experienced presence that shifts how we experience dance, the arts, the world, and each other.
Founded by Laura Sarah Dowdall in 2015, Running Blind explores how dance can be created and experienced beyond an exclusively visual art form. inclusive dance practice she has been developing in collaboration with blind, visually impaired and deafblind communities for more than a decade.
Running Blind began in 2015 as the title of a first performance — a work born from founder and choreographer Laura Sarah Dowdall’s collaboration with the deafblind community. Over the ten years since, it has grown through sustained relationships and shared practice into an ongoing project and an inclusive dance ensemble.
Rooted in research, community collaboration, and development, the Running Blind Dance project expands our understanding of dance beyond a vision-reliant art form, expanding it into an embodied accessible experience for everyone. That work has taken shape as a series of accessible dance performances, community sharings, international collaborations, integrated workshops, training programmes, performance projects, and short films.
Video here of recent Dance for All project in collaboration with members of Fighting Blindness, supported by Create, Artist in the Community Research (2023) and Project Realisation Award (2024):
Embedding Access
Founded in 2015 by dance artist Laura Sarah Dowdall, Running Blind is an inclusive dance practice built through more than a decade of direct, ongoing collaboration with blind, visually impaired and deafblind communities. Rather than adapting an existing dance form for access, Running Blind builds access into dance practice and performance as artistic language, not as afterthought. That approach is grounded in Laura’s own integrated method — combining haptic communication and creative description — developed over ten years of direct relationship with the communities it serves, and now shared with arts, education, health, social care and therapeutic professionals through Running Blind’s training programmes.
That work is grounded in long-term partnerships — with the Anne Sullivan Centre for the Deafblind since 2015, Fighting Blindness since 2022, and Vision Sports Ireland. This year, Running Blind was named one of six national recipients of the Arts Council of Ireland Dance Artist Residency Scheme, in partnership with Dublin City Council and The Gate Theatre — the next stage in developing a series of public events, inclusive performance and an ensemble of sighted and visually-impaired performers.
Running Blind’s work has been featured on RTÉ One’s Nationwide (2024), presented at the Global Retina Conference in 2024 to the Retina International Council -consisting of delegates from around the world, at the MOVE ME! Festival of Inclusive Dance in the Netherlands (2024), as a Facilitator on ireland’s first inclusive dance training with Inclusive Dance Cork and UCC (2023), and at the Vision Global Conference in Dublin (2022).
About Laura Sarah Dowdall
Laura Sarah Dowdall is an Irish dance artist working across contemporary dance, inclusive practice, immersive performance and audio description. Her work has been presented in Ireland and internationally, including in the USA, Germany, France and the Netherlands. She is a trained professional audio describer, with training from Arts Disability Ireland, Minds Eye Audio Description Training and The Lir Academy (supported by Dublin Dance Festival), and has trained and been mentored directly by the developers of the Social Haptic Communication model.
For a full biography of Laura’s artistic practice and productions, visit laurasarahdowdall.com
Participants Words
“I thought dance was impossible — these workshops have made the impossible possible.”
— John, Dance for All, 2017
“I can feel the world through my feet — now I understand that listening is not just with your ears, but your whole body.”
— Barry, post-workshop focus group
“It is a very supportive environment where we could explore freedom and independence. It’s broadened my world.”
— Laura, participant, 2026
“We are all equal here.”
— Helena
Selected Awards & Residencies
- Arts Council of Ireland Dance Artist Residency Scheme, with Dublin City Council & The Gate Theatre — 2026
- Create Artist in the Community Research + Project Realisation Award — 2024–2025
- DLR Baths Inaugural Artist in Residence — 2023
- MOVE ME! Festival of Inclusive Dance, Netherlands — 2023
- Vision Global Conference, Dublin — 2022
- Rua Red Dancer in Residence — 2017
- Next Generation Artist Award, Arts Council Bursary — 2017
- Dance Ireland Tyrone Guthrie Centre Residency Award — 2016
- Dance Ireland Mentored Residency Award, with Tom Pritchard — 2016
Get Involved
Running Blind offers community workshops, staff awareness training and practitioner training for arts, education, health and social care professionals — see Training & Workshops →
For press, partnership or booking enquiries: laura@runningblind.ie
MEDIA
National Television:
Laura’s inclusive dance work featured on Nationwide in 2024 during the Retina International World Congress in Dublin in 2024 –
National Press:
This inclusive dance project also featured as the cover-story of the Irish Independent, National Newspaper in the Health Supplement in 2018 in an article titled “ Dancing In the Dark”.
Read full article on the “In the News” Section or on the Irish Independent Newspaper’s website.
Conference Presenter at Vision 2022 Global Conference in Dublin, 2022:
The below presentation shares research, principles & practices for inclusive movement practice that this project has developed over the last ten years while working with the Anne Sullivan Centre for the Deafblind and through the integrated workshops open to all community members, for the National Council for the Blind and Vision Sports Ireland.
RUNNING BLIND PRODUCTIONS OVER THE YEARS:
Kind support has also been provided by Arts Council of Ireland, Create Ireland, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, Dance Theatre of Ireland, Dance Ireland.
Click here to view more artistic work by Laura Sarah Dowdall
