Founding Artistic Director Mark Howard Announced Chelsea Hoy as Co-Artistic Director On Stage at Chicago’s Auditorium After 12 Years of Dedication and Transformative Leadership 
CHICAGO – On Saturday, Feb. 28, Trinity Irish Dance Company (TIDC) Founding Artistic Director Mark Howard stepped onto the stage of The Auditorium in Chicago amidst Act Two of the company’s 35th Anniversary home season celebration and revealed the ultimate surprise in front of thousands.
Chelsea Hoy, TIDC’s Associate Artistic Director for the past eight years, dancer, and budding co-choreographer, was reintroduced to an ecstatic audience as the company’s Co-Artistic Director.
At age 30, she has become one of the youngest artistic directors in the performing arts industry. Howard welcomed Hoy to the stage following a short video that teased a full-length public television documentary that is in the works, celebrating the company’s trailblazing legacy and major milestones of its 35th year. “Although I’ll be doing this for the next couple of decades and my best work is certainly ahead of me, it’s time to share the artistic director role with this level of talent. Chicago - you have no idea what you’re in store for in the coming years,” shared Howard. 
At the Auditorium, for the first time, the screen behind them revealed an updated TIDC logo, with the byline evolving to read “Artistic Directors Mark Howard & Chelsea Hoy.” The audience and backstage crew and dancers erupted into cheers as the stunned Hoy humbly accepted the prolonged applause before taking her place to begin a particularly powerful performance of the piece ‘Push’. “Although Chelsea speaks in soft tones, there is a great power to her.
Chelsea forces the room to lean in, ever closer in order to hear her wise beyond her years words. So, we lean in and have all been richly rewarded for it. She is a game changer for our company and Chicago’s vibrant and expanding arts scene,” shares Howard. “The legacy of Trinity Irish Dance Company – as a trailblazing force for our cultural form and as an authentic community for artists to evolve – is deeply important to me. Mark created his own movement genre, a bold vision that altered the landscape of Irish dance worldwide and one that continues to carve the path for what’s next. He has an uncanny ability to create what’s new, what’s next, what’s fresh and I’m thrilled to realize new dreams together,” shares Hoy.
Hoy has found her power through Irish dance since age six. She first became enraptured with TIDC at just nine years old when her aunt brought her and her sister to see the company in Beaver Creek, CO.
After training and teaching at the Wick School of Irish Dance in Denver, Hoy moved to Chicago in 2013 to attend Loyola University Chicago and began creating and performing with TIDC.
Hoy showed immediate leadership from her first tour of Japan, connecting with each artist. Hoy and Howard have been partnering to revitalize the organization and enchant audiences for the past 12 years, expanding on TIDC’s international reputation as the most innovative and forward-thinking Irish dance company in the world.
A dynamic choreographer, performer, activist and organizational leader, she is proud to join Howard at the forefront of evolving this cultural form with integrity and innovation. Primarily a female company since inception, this equal billing of leadership is representative of TIDC’s longstanding celebration of women who bring the thunder.
Despite her relative youth, Hoy has helped shape and co-choreograph significant TIDC works, and has been celebrated as both dancer and choreographer at prestigious institutions from Chicago to Tokyo, including Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and The Joyce Theater in the last year alone.
Days after her announcement, Hoy traveled to New York to choreograph and perform a work at the 2026 Uptown Rhythm Dance Festival (part of the ‘Women Move the World’ series) at the 92nd Street Y.
Trinity Irish Dance Company continues to gain acclaim and momentum as they advance Howard’s distinctive movement genre of “Progressive Irish Dance.” Their 35th Anniversary Season alone brought Irish dance to places it’s never been before – from the Museum of Contemporary Art to Jacob’s Pillow, making TIDC the first full program of Irish dance to be presented on the Ted Shawn Theatre stage.
TIDC allows Irish dance to grow and transform for contemporary audiences while maintaining a strong connection to its ancestral roots. Celebrated by critics and audiences around the world as an international treasure, TIDC continues to forge new traditions as it expands the possibilities of this cherished and historic art form.
Critical Dance writer Jerry Hochman, reviewing the recent Joyce Theater performance wrote “If you haven’t finalized your plans for the next few days, or even if you have, stop what you’re doing and beg, borrow or steal a ticket. They’re that good, and that much fun to watch…these dancers perform with a level of youthful and engaging enthusiasm that’s both contagious and intoxicating.”
Marina Kennedy, reviewing the same performance for Broadway World praised the company for presenting “a stunning program of groundbreaking dance” featuring “awe-inspiring talent” and recognizing the “exquisite versatility” of the dancers.
ABOUT THE TRINITY IRISH DANCE COMPANY
Founded in 1990, TIDC is the birthplace of progressive Irish dance, Howard’s innovative movement genre that “ushered in a new era for Irish step dance, one which led directly to commercialized stadium tours like ‘Riverdance.’” (Chicago Tribune). Since inception, TIDC has always been an art-driven company that uniquely celebrates Irish dance through a performing arts lens. They seek higher ground by allowing the form to morph and evolve with integrity while keeping a clear lineage to the ancestors.
Considered an international treasure by critics and enthusiasts worldwide, TIDC continues to carve new traditions as they push the boundaries of a traditional and beloved art form. TIDC’s 35-year history is one of unlikely successes and unexpected evolutions: the rise of an ambitious young Irish dance coach to an internationally celebrated choreographer. Howard founded the Trinity Academy of Irish Dance at the age of 20, coaching and choreographing the first world championship gold-medal winning team for the United States in 1987 and ultimately bringing home America’s first gold in all team categories.
Trinity’s competitive dominance garnered national and international media exposure, including regular appearances on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Their meteoric rise in the 80s led to the creation of a groundbreaking repertoire and the ultimate founding of the non-profit TIDC.
The company has been celebrated on many of the most prestigious stages around the world, from New York City’s Joyce Theater to Chicago’s Auditorium and Tokyo’s Orchard Hall.
TIDC is touted as the most toured foreign dance company of Japan. Their ever-evolving diverse repertoire continues to redefine what is possible for Irish dance. Celebrated as a company “where women make the form their own” by The Boston Globe, TIDC sends a clear message of female empowerment through a blend of percussive power and aerial grace that consistently presents males and females on equal footing.
“The women of TIDC don’t only get to make noise,” says Co-Artistic Director Chelsea Hoy. “We’re expected to make noise.”
Chelsea Hoy Named Co-Artistic Director of Trinity Irish Dance Company
