Colin Dunne (born 8 May 1968 in Birmingham, England) is an English performer of Irish dance.
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Dunne trained at the Marion Turley Academy of Irish Dance in Coventry. In 1978 at the age of nine, Dunne swept the "Grand Slam" of Irish dance competition by winning the World Championships, All Ireland and All England titles. He went on to win a total of nine World, eleven Great Britain, nine All Ireland and eight All England titles.
A teaching career followed his successful competitive one, during which time he also completed an economics degree at University of Warwick and a three-year contract with the Arthur Andersen office in Birmingham, training as a chartered accountant. For five years, he taught with Turley in the academy where he had trained, and taught dance in Ireland, the United States, New Zealand and Australia. In 1995, his Irish dance instructional video "Celtic Feet" was launched in Europe, and it remained in the UK top 20 video sales chart for 10 weeks. The video was subsequently released in North America on the relaunch of the QVC network in 1997.
The day he qualified as a chartered accountant in September 1993, Colin resigned from his job. Having already toured the UK with The Chieftains, he was asked to dance with them on their upcoming month-long tour of Canada. In 1995, Dunne met fiddle player Frankie Gavin, who invited him to New York City in March to perform at a St. Patrick's day celebration at Broadway's Mariott Marquis.
Dunne was approached by Riverdance through American tap dancer Tariq Winston, with whom he developed a number called "Trading Taps" for the show. Dunne and Winston had met through Gavin at the St. Patrick's Day celebration. The number was to be included in the London debut of the show. However, Michael Flatley had just left the show after a disagreement over creative control with the producers, so Dunne was tapped to replace him in the lead role. This move reunited him with former dance partner Jean Butler, who danced with him at Mayo 5000 and at various Chieftains shows.
In June 1998, Dunne left Riverdance to set up his own dance and production company, teaming up with Butler. In 1999, they co-produced, choreographed and starred in their first production, Dancing on Dangerous Ground, a theatrical dance production of the Irish myth "Diarmuid and Grainne". The show premiered at The Theatre Royal in London in December 1999, and went on to a sell-out run at Radio City Music Hall in March 2000.
Dunne launched the MA in Dance Performance at the Irish World Music Centre based at the University of Limerick in 1999. Two years later, he accepted a position as Dancer in Residence at the university, where he also achieved a Master's in Contemporary Dance Performance. Here he began focusing on a body of solo works still relying on the dance tradition from which he comes, but within the framework of Contemporary Dance principles. Much of this work was premiered during 2002 namely in Edmonton, Canada as a guest of the Citie Ballet, and at the Vail International Dance festival in Colorado. He also choreographed "HeadFoot" for Daghdha Dance Company as part of Yoshiko Chuma's "10,000 Steps", which closed the Dublin International Dance Festival in May 2002. As of January 2003, Dunne is collaborating with Chuma as choreographer and performer in her production of "The Yellow Room" which will tour Ireland in January/February 2003. Dunne continues to travel the world teaching Irish dance classes.