WATCH Irish Aerial Creation Centre celebrates 10 years flying high

Irish Aerial Creation Centre marks an incredible 10 years flying high in Limerick with a milestone celebration. Picture: Olena Oleksienko/ilovelimerick

The Irish Aerial Creation Centre marks its significant 10-year milestone celebration of creativity in Limerick

The Irish Aerial Creation Centre (IACC) has marked a major milestone celebration with its 10th anniversary, bringing creativity and community to Limerick and beyond. Evolving from an ambitious idea into what is now recognised as the national home for aerial dance in Ireland, the group’s roots can be traced back to Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Theatre.

Fidget Feet, Ireland’s national aerial dance company, has been operating for more than 27 years, and a strong partnership with the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance at the University of Limerick drove the company to set up a base in Limerick.

Speaking with I Love Limerick, Chantal McCormick, IACC founder, said, “ Fidget Feet is the national company for aerial dance in Ireland, and we are 27 years old. We’ve travelled all over Ireland, and we came to Limerick specifically because of the partnership with the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. In 2008, I was lucky enough to get a trip to Montreal, and there we took a tour around the Cirque Soleil building, the headquarters. I came back to Ireland, and that was my dream; to have a space purely for aerial and circus and all the facilities needed to do that.”

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Following early feasibility studies, support from LEADER funding in 2011, and momentum gained through an Arthur Guinness Project Award in 2013, the Irish Aerial Creation Centre was formally established in 2015 as a sister organisation to Fidget Feet.

Chantal explained, “2014 is when the excitement happened, we came to Limerick because Fidget Feet became one of the main companies to perform as part of the City of Culture.

“There we met Sheila Deegan and Paul Foley from the Limerick City and County Council, and also the late Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, who were huge supporters in Fidget Feet being here, and they supported us to find this building that we’re in right now.”

Since then, the centre has expanded thanks to capital funding, including major grants in 2016 and 2017, allowing the development of professional facilities, community classes, and residency programmes. As the group grows, its partnerships have also grown, including in both the local and international community.

One of the group’s main partnerships is with the University of Limerick’s Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, Chantal said, “ We opened the doors in February 2015 with the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance Students. This was all part of the relationship with Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, our patron. When I said, ‘Hey, can we teach your students’. As soon as he said ‘yes’, we all moved to Limerick and that’s how it all started.

“In September 2015, we did the official launch, and he played music on the piano for us, and we went on the vertical wall. That was the real beginning of the Irish Aerial Creation Centre.”

International partnerships followed, including the  Creation Centre in Majorca, partnerships with projects from 14 islands all around Europe, and ongoing collaborations supported through Creative Ireland and Creative Europe funding.

In recent years, extensive renovations transformed the building into a warm, fully equipped creative hub. Completed in 2022, the redevelopment introduced a three-storey internal structure, studios, a vertical dance wall, 36 aerial points, and a professional black box rehearsal space. The centre now hosts around 30 residencies annually and supports artists across multiple disciplines, not just aerial performance.

Brian Rafferty, Managing Director at IACC, said the vision with the renovation was to “create a warm space”, he said, “There was no warm circus space in the British Isles to give artists coming from all over the world here for residencies – we do about 30 residencies a year – So to give them an actual warm space, that was the number one priority.”

Since opening its doors, the IACC has stood true to its mission to continue its engagement within the community while inspiring creativity. “ We received Creative Ireland funding for the first time from the Limerick City and County Council,” Chantal explained, adding, “That was when we really started to offer collaboration and skills swap into the young people. We had a lot of young people come into the Creation Centre, then Creative Ireland allowed us to really hone in on ‘what do these young people need if they want to become professional artists’.”

Creative Ireland Project funding allowed the group to grow its community impact and also allowed them to partner with youth groups and bring in professionals who would help the youth groups put on shows every year. As well as the centre’s funded and paid programmes, they also continue to host monthly free family circus days, inclusive work with disabled and autistic participants, youth exchanges, and training pathways aimed at preparing young people for third-level circus education. Partnerships with schools, the Midwest School of the Deaf, and the University of Limerick continue to deepen its reach.

In recent years, the IACC has seen a lot of growth, and with support from the late Miriam Dunne from Waterford’s Spraoi, they have put a “ very strong strategic plan” in place to hone in on their dreams and aspirations. Chantal said, “The big thing was getting the building renovated and also for Fidget Feet to have a fully-equipped black box space where we can create shows that we can take all over the world. So I couldn’t have imagined what we have now. I think what’s really special is that we call it the National Home for Aerial Dance!”

Looking to the future, Sara Granda, Head Teacher, highlighted the work the group does with young adults and teenagers, in particular the group’s “Creative Ireland” programme, which has been running for a number of years, bringing the teachers and students together as part of the creative process. Sara said, “They love it, they love performing, they not only come here to learn Aerial, but also to perform.”

The teacher also noted the importance of the Island Connect Europe Project, saying, “We have been doing this for a few years, which is like a lot of different islands in Europe. They are connectors; it means that we either give residencies to other European artists, they don’t necessarily need to be aerial, they are different art forms, like photography for example, or poetry or like a lot of things.

Then we all gathered together; this year was a big meeting in Tenerife. We all gathered together and then for the future, we just put a really big application where we are hoping that it comes up to 13 partners, and we are hoping that a lot of them work together in a show. So we are hoping to create a show out of that new application.”

Looking to the future, Sara said, “ Our hopes and dreams for the future are to keep growing the community we have and to keep making work for young audiences, for older people, for the community. We have to keep it growing and to keep giving them a national home, which is the IACC.”

Speaking about the impact of the centre, Chantal concluded, “ What I love about this is that it’s professionals and community groups together sharing the same space. What we gain as human beings, create and work here and grow, and as artists and healing through aerial dance is unique.”

2025 marks a major milestone for the Limerick-based Irish Aerial Creation Centre (IACC) as the group celebrates ten years of unique creativity in Limerick and as Ireland’s first purpose-built space for aerial dance.

Known for the home of its founders, internationally renowned Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Company, the IACC has grown to a hub of creativity and community by giving people a place to unlock their creativity, and it is a centre of excellence for the creation and education of aerial arts. IACC offers classes in aerial, which is a unique way for individuals, communities and businesses, both local and national, to discover talents they didn’t know they had and develop new skills and abilities they never thought they could achieve.

Pictures: Olena Oleksienko/ilovelimerick