After an eighteen-month period living in New York, Dunne returned to Ireland in 2001 to take a position as dancer-in-residence at the University of Limerick at the invitation of Micheal O'Suilleabhain. In that year, he took the Masters in Contemporary Dance Performance. He began focusing on the creation of short solo works, and presented these solos at the Vail International Dance Festival in Colorado; Jubilee Auditorium in the Canadian city of Edmonton; and the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London. As part of his final MA, he choreographed "Headfoot" for the Daghdha Dance/Yoshiko Chuma production of 10,000 Steps which closed the first Dublin International Dance Festival in May 2002.