In the company’s first Colorado performance in 10+ years, Denver native and new co-artistic director returns to the stage where she first saw Trinity as a nine-year-old
If you go…
What: Trinity Irish Dance Company
When: Friday, August 28, 2026, 7:00 p.m.
Where: Vilar Performing Arts Center, Beaver Creek, Colorado
Tickets: vilarpac.org
When Chelsea Hoy was nine years old, her aunt pulled her out of school early and drove her up the mountain from Denver to see a dance company perform at the Vilar Performing Arts Center. More than twenty years later, she is returning to that same stage—this time as the leader of the company she once came to see.
On August 28, 2026, Trinity Irish Dance Company performs at the Vilar Performing Arts Center in Beaver Creek, its first Colorado performance in more than a decade and the first one at the Vilar since Hoy saw the group there as a child. Leading it is Hoy: a Denver native who was named the company’s co-artistic director earlier this year. At 30, she is one of the youngest artistic directors in the performing arts and one of very few women to lead a major dance company.
A full-circle homecoming
Hoy left the Vilar that night in 2005 with a company T-shirt and a plan for her life. She joined Trinity in 2014, rose to associate artistic director, and was named co-artistic director this past February. Now she is coming back to the theater where it started.
“I still remember sitting in the Vilar when I was nine, and I remember exactly where I sat. I walked away with the Trinity DVD and the T-shirt,” Hoy said. “This is the first time I’m really returning home.”
Nearly every piece on the Vilar program will be a Colorado premiere.
More than a show
Trinity Irish Dance Company is a Chicago company, founded in 1990, that performs Irish dance as a concert art form. It predates Riverdance by about five years and is the only repertoire performing arts Irish dance company in the world, appearing at institutions like Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival and the Joyce Theater rather than on the commercial circuit.
As Irish dance has grown into a commercial phenomenon of glitzy costumes and big spectacle, Trinity has stayed rooted in serious concert dance, treating the art form as something to develop, not package.
Vail Dance Festival premiere
Hoy’s Colorado summer starts before her performance at the Vilar. Because the Vilar and the Vail Dance Festival (July 31-August 10, 2026) are both projects of the nonprofit Vail Valley Foundation, Coloradans can catch Hoy’s work twice this summer: first in Vail and then in Beaver Creek.
At the Vail Dance Festival, Hoy will co-choreograph a new work with Michelle Dorrance, one of the most celebrated tap artists working today. The piece will debut at NOW: Premieres on August 10, bringing Trinity’s Irish dancers into the same room as the world’s top tap and ballet dancers, including New York City Ballet’s Tiler Peck, Roman Mejia, and India Bradley. Trinity will also appear in select Festival performances.
A theater for making memories
The Vilar Performing Arts Center is a 530-seat nonprofit theater in the heart of Beaver Creek Village, built underground and modeled on 19th-century European opera houses. It presents year-round programming across Broadway, concerts, dance, comedy, family entertainment, classical music, and more.
“This performance is a remarkable full-circle moment in Chelsea’s dance journey,” said Cameron Morgan, Executive Director of the Vilar Performing Arts Center. “She sat in this theater as a child and fell in love with Irish dance, and now she’s returning to the Vilar leading the very company that inspired her. It’s a wonderful story, and I think it will make this performance especially meaningful.”
As part of the run, Trinity will also perform a free matinee for Eagle County students through the Vilar’s STARS program (Support the Arts Reaching Students), which provides more than 10,000 free tickets each year <span