Irish dance school evicted&homeless

Our studio is being turned into a home for refugees in the first 2 months of 2016 and the landlord has kicked out all tenants with less than 4 weeks' notice.

He can expect huge profit from this; definitely several times the amount to be made with standard commercial rent.

We have a few weeks left, at best.

Conditions in the building are worsening every day due to ongoing heavy construction works, noise and filth.

We have to find somewhere new as soon as possible.

There is no hope for compensation from the landlord and we cannot afford a legal battle.

We are desperately searching for a new premises and need financial support to make the move happen. Most importantly, we need to be able to pay a rent deposit (several thousand €) and get the floor done (at least 3k€).

Irish Dancing cannot be done on concrete or normal office floors; they are far too hard and ruin knees, feet and backs in no time.

Our current floor was installed less than 2ys ago and cannot be moved... We had planned to stay at the studio much longer, but the situation in Germany has changed drastically over the last year.

Please help us, even with the smallest donation, to make the move happen. Every penny will go towards setting up the new place and we will post updates on the process and a video of the dancers doing a jig and a reel there.

We don't want to give up!

The Irish Times picked up our story, too.

Please help - we are keeping Irish culture very much alive in Berlin! We are very very grateful for any small donation.

For anyone in Berlin: We are holding a fundraiser event at the Oscar Wilde Irish Pub on Friday, Feb 12th from 6.30pm with lots of music, a dance show and ceili dancing!

A little background:

At the Jigs & Reels Irish Dance Academy Berlin we teach kids from 3ys and adults how to Irish Dance.

We are successfully competing internationally within An Comisuin Le Rinci Gaelacha (the worldwide Irish Dancing Commission).
We also have a small show company performing at events across the country.

Our dancers are of all origins - Irish, American, British, German, Chinese, Russian... and many more.
They are united by their passion and their love of Irish Dancing, deeply rooted in Irish culture.
We have been working with the O'Shea School in Dublin (our founders teachers) for a while now. They were involved in the original Riverdance.