Pan Pan Platform at Dublin Fringe Festival 2025

ALIENS – Curios Industries Join a real-life mother and daughter on a road trip from Donegal to southern Italy, as they weave their personal stories with those of Italian immigrants in Northern Ireland and present-day migrants, activists, and strangers meet along the way. Blending performance, video, and live music, this show invites you to explore what it means to live between countries, generations, and identities - a meditation on inheritance, migration, and those who live in between: the aliens 

Constriction – Mai Ishikawa A Japanese bullet train. A woman. And a baby hatch. Inside the train, we hear two voices talking about a woman who headed West to give up her baby. Sometimes serious, sometimes playful, they discuss the implications. But the more they talk, it seems, the less there is to say. And who are they, really? This experimental work is a surreal exploration of motherhood and identity, using sound and movement to explore the pain of facing reality. Written by a poet-and-translator who has lived in three different countries, the piece also transcends cultural boundaries; she draws inspiration from her Japanese heritage while delving deep into a universal theme.

don’t copy me (copy) – Gift Horse Theatre don’t copy me (copy) is a celebration and interrogation of the myth of originality. None of us are original. We poach stories from legends, base characters on real people, repurpose real life into art. What does it mean to make work in the present without responding to the past? What does it mean to adapt a text you love? To work with ideas from someone you hate? Gift Horse Theatre wrestles with these questions as they attempt to complete an impossible task: to write something new. Is this idea even theirs? Is it even good? And will the Beckett Estate find out? Blending lecture, lies, fact, fiction, music, and dance, don’t copy me (copy) is a tongue-in-cheek response to questions of representation, marginalisation, and problematic faves. For theatre virgins and veterans, Gift Horse Theatre presents a brand new play we stole from someone else.  

In 2019 Pan Pan and Dublin Fringe Festival decided to formalise their partnership as the Pan Pan Platform with Hannah Mamalis’s Symphony of Worms and Luke Casserly & Shanna May Breen’s Mould Into Shape. In 2020, Murmuration’s Will I See You There and Matt Bratko & Frank Sweeney’s Initiation were supported through the platform; in 2021 Ian Lynam’s Autistic License and Lark’s I Feel You Apart From Me; in 2022 Colm Higgin’s The Birdwatcher's Trip to Alpha Centauri and Bradán’s Cooking the Vegan Salmon of Knowledge; in 2023, Ahmed, With Love.’s Clash at the Quays! and Martha Knight’s The King of All Birds; in 2024, Ololufé by ArínọláTheatre and BEASTS by Morgan Savidan and Sasha Carberry Sharma. 

Prior to that, Pan Pan was associate producer on four productions in Dublin Fringe Festival 2018, Unwoman Part III by The Rabble and Maeve Stone, My Dad’s Blind by Anna Shiels McNamee, Oneday by Dick Walsh and James Moran and Everything I Do by Zoe Ní Ríordáin. 

Since its inception, Pan Pan has constantly examined and challenged the nature of its work and has resisted settling into well-tried formulas. Developing new performance ideas is at the centre of the company’s mission. All the works created are original, either through the writing (original plays) or through the totally unique expression of established writings. Pan Pan tries to approach theatre as an open form of expression and has developed an individual aesthetic that has grown from making performances in a host of different situations and conditions. 

Pan Pan is committed to presenting performances nationally and internationally and developing links for co-productions and collaborations. The company has toured in Ireland, UK, Europe, USA, Canada, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and China. 

This initiative is funded by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon.