WHO WE ARE

Purple Door is an inclusive performing arts collective for young people with Down syndrome and other intellectual disabilities, led by Kasia Eliasz (www.kasiaeliasz.com).The programme brings together participants and professional artists to create original work through music, movement and performance, supporting young people to develop confidence, artistic skills and creative expression.Purple Door currently operates across three counties: Kildare (flagship programme), Dublin and Laois, offering regular workshops, residencies and performances that place participants at the centre of the artistic process.

our mission

At Purple Door, we believe in the power of creativity to inspire, empower, and connect. As an award-winning inclusive performing arts group, we provide a welcoming and dynamic space where young people with Down syndrome can explore, express, and share their artistic voices.Our mission is to cultivate an environment of continuous learning and artistic exploration, where music, movement, theatre, and visual arts come together to celebrate the boundless potential of our performers. Through collaboration, innovation, and joy, we foster artistic excellence, social connection, and self-expression, ensuring that every voice is seen, heard, and valued.At Purple Door, we create art without limits, redefining perceptions and inspiring change—one performance at a time.

At Purple Door, we believe that the most powerful art emerges when every voice is heard, every body is welcomed, and every mode of expression is honoured.Our work is grounded in the creative potential of young people with Down syndrome. We do not approach this community as beneficiaries of access—but as artists, collaborators, and cultural leaders in their own right. Our performances, workshops, and residencies are not about inclusion as an add-on; they are about creating a new centre—one that celebrates difference as a source of artistic depth and transformation.

Our methodology is multisensory, non-verbal, rhythmic, and embodied. It draws from the rich sensory and emotional intelligence of our artists. We work through music, movement, sound, visual storytelling, and co-creation—building spaces where language is expansive and communication is multimodal. We honour gesture, rhythm, breath, and silence as equally valid contributions to artistic dialogue.Purple Door’s practice is relational. We nurture long-term engagement, trust, and mutual respect. Our facilitators are trained to listen without assumption, to prompt without control, and to follow creative impulses that emerge from the group itself. We do not impose form—we sculpt it in dialogue.

At Purple Door, we believe that the most powerful art emerges when every voice is heard, every body is welcomed, and every mode of expression is honoured.Our work is grounded in the creative potential of young people with Down syndrome. We do not approach this community as beneficiaries of access—but as artists, collaborators, and cultural leaders in their own right. Our performances, workshops, and residencies are not about inclusion as an add-on; they are about creating a new centre—one that celebrates difference as a source of artistic depth and transformation.

Weekly Performance Programme

Our long-term creative programme runs 46 weeks a year in County Kildare (Mondays), County Laois (Tuesdays) and County Dublin (Wednesdays).
Led by various established artists these weekly sessions are packed with music-making, movement, storytelling, and performance skills.Supported by Down Syndrome Ireland, this space has become a vital hub for artistic growth and connection.

Get Together (2023)

A joyful summer project funded by Creative Ireland that brought guest artists and Purple Door participants together for eight playful sessions of drama, dance, music, and visual arts.
We explored world cultures, invented new songs and soundscapes, and celebrated our creativity.Guest Artists:
Monica Muñoz (Dance)
Patrick Stefan (Music)
Bianca Gannon (Music)
Michelle McBride (Visual Arts)
Alessandra Azevedo (Dance)
Mark Ball (Super Paua) (Theatre)
Orlaith Ní Chearra (Drama & Dance)

STEREO (2025)

Our boldest performance yet — STEREO premiered at the First Fortnight Festival in Riverbank Arts Centre to a sold-out audience and standing ovation.
Through powerful movement, sound, and drama, 19 performers explored themes of identity, stereotype, and rejection.
Created and directed by Kasia Eliasz, supported by First Fortnight and the Arts Council.
Live music by: Gustavo de Morais (guitar), Rafal Szydlowski (violin), Fernando Basqueroto (percussion).

Dance Pilot Programme (2025)

We invited some of Ireland’s most exciting choreographers to lead movement workshops with Purple Door Kildare.Artists included:
John Scott, Jess Rowell, Roisin Whelan, Mateusz Szczerek, Philippa Donnellan, Cindy Cummings, Alessandra Azevedo, Rose Silva.
Each session celebrated individual expression and introduced new ways of moving, dancing, and creating together.

Get Together (2023), supported by Creative Ireland, was the founding multidisciplinary programme that established Purple Door’s artistic and inclusive methodology. It brought together young people with Down syndrome and professional artists across music, dance, drama, and visual arts within a structured, workshop-based framework.
The programme prioritised process-led engagement, with each session facilitated by a different artist, introducing diverse creative practices including improvisation, movement, sound-making, and visual exploration. Participants were supported to experiment, collaborate, and develop confidence in expressing ideas across art forms.
Get Together created an accessible entry point into high-quality artistic experiences, while also testing a collaborative model that centres the voice and agency of participants. The programme directly informed the development of Purple Door as an ongoing, artist-led initiative.
Timeline: July - August 2023 (8 weeks)Guest Artists: Monica Munoz, eM, Alessandra Azevedo, Patrick Stefan, Bianca Gannon, Michelle McBride, Orlaith NiChearra, Gustavo de Morais.

The Pilot Dance Programme (2025), funded by Kildare County Council Arts Service, was a targeted initiative to expand Purple Door’s engagement with contemporary dance and movement-based practice.
The programme invited leading choreographers to work directly with participants through a series of workshops, introducing a range of movement languages and compositional approaches. Participants engaged in physical exploration, improvisation, and co-creation, developing awareness of their bodies as expressive tools.
This programme strengthened dance as a core artistic strand, supporting participants to build confidence, authorship, and presence within a contemporary performance context. It also contributed to the professional development of the programme, embedding dance within Purple Door’s long-term artistic framework.Artists involved: John Scott, Jess Rowell, Róisín Whelan, Mateusz Szczerek, Philippa Donnellan, Alessandra Azevedo, Cindy Cummings

The Artist in Residence programme (2025) was developed to support extended engagement between participants and professional artists, enabling deeper artistic collaboration within Purple Door’s weekly practice.
Through a sustained residency model, artists worked with the group over multiple sessions, allowing time for relationship-building, iterative development, and responsive creation. This approach moved beyond short-term facilitation towards a co-creative process, where participants actively contributed to the generation and shaping of material.
As noted by Jess Rowell (Artist in Residence):Over the course of the residency, each participant began to develop their own unique movement language at their own pace. The consistent structure of the sessions created space for exploration, allowing participants to engage creatively through movement in a way that felt responsive to their individual needs.The residency supported higher artistic quality and ambition, enabling participants to refine skills, develop ideas over time, and engage in a more rigorous creative process. It represents a key step in positioning Purple Door as a space for ongoing artistic development and collaboration, rather than one-off participation.
Timeline: October - December 2025 (10 weeks)Artists involved: Jess Rowell

Events:
- Inclusive Samba with Rose Silva
- Inclusive Live Band Karaoke
- Inclusive Dance with Yves Lorrhan
- Inclusive Hip-Hop with Mateusz Szczerek
- Exploring sounds & circus with Jane Hackett & Oli ????
- Inclusive Dance with Karen Aguair