Coming to the festival and want to see all the shows? Participants can buy the Show Pack when paying for their classes, which gives them access to all the shows.

Wednesday 24th July 

International Night – 8 pm An Grianán Theatre

Friday 26th July 

Jumpstart Double Bill – 8pm An Grianán Theatre

MAKOSH by Polina Shapkina (25 minutes)

ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS by Ashton

Saturday 29th July

Emma Insley Cabaret Night – 7pm An Grianán Theatre

Tickets for shows in An Grianán can be purchased through An Grianán Theatre, Letterkenny

€10 or €15 for 2 to celebrate 15 years of IADF

Online https://angrianan.com/
or by calling Box Office: +353 74 912 0777

International Night

Wednesday 24th July @ 8 pm – An Grianán

Join us on Wednesday 24^th July @ 8pm in An Grianán Theatre, for a selection of acts from international artists.

Emma Poole

Emma is a Liverpool (UK) based aerial rope artist who has carved her unique expressive style through years of international performing, creating and teaching experience. She works against rope norms, exploring how contemporary dance can be interwoven seamlessly from the floor to the air.

She will be showing a 20-minute work in progress piece on dual rope exploring the complex relationships we have with our body. How we learn to seek our worth through appearance and what happens when that unravels.

Janelle Peters

Janelle Peters (USA) is a queer circus artist, circus coach, and psychotherapist whose work is focused on the wholeness and humanity of everyone involved.

There Were Two Spirals offers a meditation on what is always changing, and what persists. Set to an original composition by Miles Wilder, this 7 minute hoop piece invites the audience to experience deep settling and to lose touch with urgency

Carolina Cabañas

Carolina Cabañas has 22 years of experience in performing arts, mainly in contemporary dance, ballet Aerial dance and contemporary circus. She has participated in numerous national and international productions, founded the first aerial dance school and company in Costa Rica, and continues to teach, promote, perform, and research.

Permea is a work of contemporary dance and aerial dance that deals with the theme of resilience and questions how we relate to vulnerability. Using thin ropes to represent fragility and at the same time strength, resistance and acceptance. The work aims to show resilience as a way of resisting, of overcoming, and how through the permeability of vulnerability, it is possible to achieve it. Approximately 30 minutes.

Jumpstart Double Bill – MAKOSH, One Hundred Thousand Years

Friday 28th July @ 8pm – An Grianán

The Jumpstart Consortium Is Earagail Arts Festival, Cairde Sligo Arts Festival, Fidget Feet’s Irish Aerial Dance Festival and the ISACS Network

This partnership is interested in supporting emerging circus artists with a speciality/interest in aerial technique and creativity. Together we are developing a residency and creative mentorship programme, which supports and encourages emerging aerial artists to take the first step forward in artistic creation. The selected artists are mentored by mid-career circus artists, therefore encouraging the growth of a supportive eco-system between and among their artistic peers.

MAKOSH by Polina Shapkina (30 mins)

2021-22 JumpStart artist

Inspired by the works of Carl Jung on the human psyche, journey through a world of symbols on a quest to be the fullest expression of ourselves if we have the courage to take it. A surreal dreamscape, an age old quest for meaning and belonging in a world of disillusion.

A tentative battle plays out between the protagonist PSYCHE who is faced with the challenge of incorporating the deepest parts of herself – this hidden and dark unconscious represented by a second dancer: SHADOW. ORDER is embodied by the third performer.

While rich in Slavic folk motifs that connect to the artists ancestral heritage, and post-soviet dystopianism, the work also presents the world order we are currently living in – one that calls for conformity and imposes oppressive structures on ordinary lives.

One Hundred Thousand Years by Ashton (50 mins)

2023-24 JumpStart Artist

A joyful exploration of time and nature, using vertical dance, theatre and multi-sensory installation. Inspired by the natural environments of the West Coast of Ireland.

Ashton is the recipient of the 2023-2024 JUMPSTART programme. In the first year their focus was movement research on-site, and they are now presenting a performance-in-development sharing. JUMPSTART is supported by Earagail Arts Festival, Cairde Sligo Arts Festival, Irish Street Arts, Circus and Spectacle Network (ISACS) and Irish Aerial Dance Festival. Supported by Arts Council Ireland.

The Emma Insley Cabaret

Saturday 29th July @ 7pm – An Grianán

The Emma Insley Cabaret has been running since the festival began in 2010. This year it’s celebrating 15 years of the Irish Aerial Dance Festival! 

The Cabaret will be a curated selection of acts from the aerial dancers participating in the festival and will be a variety of lengths and apparatus, including some group numbers. We want to share what we’ve been working on, so come and join the celebration with us!

The winners of the Emma Insley Aerial Creation Fund will also perform their piece, the festival is in memory of Emma Insley.