Goodbye 2019, Hello 2020!

Well, what a year 2019 has been! Let’s take a look back over the last 12 months and announce some exciting news for 2020!

We created and toured our largest indoor show to date, Bingo Wings to three Irish venues, working with theatre director Jo Mangan of Performance Corporation and Writer Tom Swift. Bingo Wings returns in 2020 to The Civic, Dublin 16 & 17 April and The Black Box Theatre, Galway, 29, 30 April & 1 May. Thanks to funding from Arts Council of Ireland. For more information and tickets click here.

Running parallel to Bingo Wings, we embarked on an ambitious intergenerational social circus project, The Bingo Wings Project, bringing communities in Limerick, Kerry and Donegal together through circus and bingo. Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland Invitation to Collaboration Scheme led by Limerick City and County Council Arts Department, with Donegal and Kerry County Council’s Art Departments. We aim to bring the project to Dublin and Galway in 2020. Watch the project highlights.

We were excited to tour to 12 Irish venues with latest children’s show Hatch, performing 40 shows to schools and families nationwide. We’re excited to be working on a new outdoor promenade version of the show and perform it at Sharjah Fringe, Al Majaz, United Arab Emirates in January 2020. Click here for dates

The Hatch schools programme also took place in three primary schools in County Limerick thanks to funding from Limerick City and County Council Arts Department. Across seven weeks we visited classrooms, carried out workshops and finished with flying lessons for everyone! We hope to continue this schools programme.

We performed Strange Feathers to audiences in Hong Kong, Lithuania and Poland and in 2020 we will perform it at Sharjah Fringe, Al Majaz, United Arab Emirates in January 2020. Click here for dates

We continued our partnership with Creative Europe funded project Vertical Dance Forum (VDF), participating in meetings in Paris, Vancouver and Venice. VDF is now finished and we would like to thank everyone who took part. VDF still alive and the choreographers aim to run a Symposium in November 2020.  For more information on VDF click here.

We celebrated the 10th Irish Aerial Dance Festival in Letterkenny, Donegal, the biggest festival yet with over 200 participants. IADF 2020 dates 27 June – 12 July, we can’t wait to see you there! Planning is well under way for 2020, with the schedule available and booking system open in January. Sign up to the festival mailing list here to keep up to date. 

We took over the Hallowe’en skies in Derry and Ireland’s newest festival, Púca Festival in Trim.

To end 2019, we are running a three week Creative Intensive Professional Development programme in collaboration with the Irish Aerial Creation Centre (IACC), finishing with a fundraiser performance featuring 16 national and international aerialists, taking place Saturday 21st December 2.30pm in the IACC. Please join us for an afternoon of fantastic performances and celebrate the end of the year.

Come say hello to us at the International Association of Performing Arts for Youth (IPAY) Showcase 2020 in Philadelphia January 21-25. Executive Artistic Director Chantal McCormick will be speaking at Kindling TWIST & FLIP, an exploration of Circus and Dance for Young Audiences, representing the Irish sector, including Galway Community Circus, Irish Street Arts Circus and Spectacle Network and the IACC.

We would like to thank everyone who has come to our performances, workshops, and events and supported us in any way and all our venues we tour to, indoors and outdoors. We cannot do what we do without your support. Also a massive thank you to all our funders and supporters, especially to the Arts Council of Ireland, Culture Ireland, Limerick City and County Council Culture and Arts Department, Donegal County Council Arts Department, Kerry County Council Arts Department, and the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. 

Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, let’s see what 2020 brings!