ForCryingOutLoud

Sunday Business Post Magazine August 10 2014

Performers of aerial dance make it look graceful and effortless but the reality is hard labour, bruises and aching limbs, as Jane Lawrenson found out 

I take a deep breath, focus my mind on the sequence I want my body to follow, and bring my arms across my ribs again. A tug, a pull, a sharp pain through my triceps and across my shoulders and I feel my arms flop down by my sides, powerless as jellied eels. It is 6:30pm on Wednesday, day three of the Donegal-based Irish Aerial Dance Fest and if I can’t get my arms to remove my sports bra soon, I’m going to have to shower with it on.

By definition, aerial dance is a form of modern dance that incorporates an apparatus, usually attached to the ceiling, allowing performers to explore movement in three-dimensions – whether it’s up, down or across. Generally it’s subdivided into ‘vertical’ and ‘supporting’ apparatus. ‘Vertical aerial’ covers dance using rope, fabric or straps (similar to gymnastic rings) and ‘supporting aerial’ uses hoop, trapeze, cube and sometimes even climbing harnesses.

A couple of introductory aerial classes earlier this year first whet my appetite for all things airborne. I imagined myself souring through the skies, swinging elegantly from one trapeze to another until finally into the muscular arms of Vlad, the Russian contortionist. The reality of the matter involved a world of gruelling sit-ups and push-ups before we even touched a fabric or trapeze – both of which dangled mere feet off the ground. But the biggest shocker (apart from Vlad’s absence in the whole affair) was the way my body acted. It was as effective and strong as a chocolate fireguard.

Fast-forward a couple of months and I’m standing in a gym in Letterkenny, County Donegal, about to embark on a five-day aerial training festival. There is a man in front of me clicking his fingers and twisting his body into an array of dance moves as he prances, pirouettes, shimmies and shakes his way across the gym. I watch as person after person follows his choreographed reprise. This is the festival’s daily warm-up, and as the chick who’s generally one vodka away from liver cirrhosis before she embarks on any sort of dancing, this is a little outside my comfort zone.

In early April 2014  the first official State Visit by an Irish President took place. Ahead of the visit we produced this short video taster to accompany the visit. The video emphasises the strong ties between Ireland and our closest neighbours, The United Kingdom, and was produced in conjunction with the Department of Foreign Affairs and in partnership with other Departments and State agencies

In the week up and including the State Visit the video garnered almost 100,000 views on Youtube. 

Producer - Jane Lawrenson/Miriam Fayne

Ireland is known as the land of one hundred thousand welcomes - and what better way to experience it than by watching this video, which was shown to the key international buyers who came to Ireland to the Irish tourist board's largest travel trade show, Meitheal 2014.

If you’re not from Ireland, our pub culture can be a confusing and beguiling affair but fret not because here is a guide to buying a round in Ireland. 

Irish people, on the whole, are relatively easy-going creatures. Perhaps for this reason, visitors from abroad are often surprised at how effortlessly they slot into Irish culture despite our many quirks and idiosyncrasies. A crafty foreigner could possibly fly under the radar by stopping for a moment to admire the stretch in the evenings, waving at strangers on country roads, eating the odd crisp sandwich and commenting on “the state of yer wan” last night. 

Unfortunately, it’s our slightly complicated pub etiquette that often catches our overseas visitors out. The core bastion of which still relies on The Round. It is worth noting at this stage that there is no absolute obligation to get involved in The Round nor is the realm of The Round solely alcohol based. All beverages are welcome in The Round. (It is also worth noting that The Round is not always round. It can be square, triangular or any other shape you can imagine.) A Round, defined quite simply, is a round of drinks.

If you are in a pub having a drink, regardless of who you are with, you are normally expected to offer to buy your companions a drink too. This is not a hoax to part you with your money — you should notice immediately that people will reciprocate with a drink for you. Irish people may be famed for their friendliness but any offer of drinks is made under the implicit agreement that you will buy the next drink for them. If you continue to drink the drinks bought for you without making any effort to reciprocate, you can guarantee the table’s topic of conversation on each of your trips to the lav will centre completely on your absolute scabbiness.

  If the group is large, it will usually organically break into smaller rounds, often appropriately sized to the amount of drinks the group is expecting to have that night. If there are 10 people present it will likely divide into approximately two to three rounds, based on who arrived when, and who has finished their drink faster.

When you are involved in a round, stick with it. Buying drinks or accepting drinks from someone else in another round is akin to cheating on a partner. A simple “No thanks, Mary, I’m grand, I’m in a round already with Dave and Barry,” will suffice. If you accept the drink you’ll have joined their round and will therefore need to ‘clear your balance’, so to speak, in the first round by buying another before you leave it. For this reason, it’s usually easier to stick with your original round throughout the night. However, under the rules of The Round, it is acceptable to change rounds if the venue changes but only after attempting to reform your original round in the new pub and failing for some reason.

If you feel like you can’t go another full cycle, it’s acceptable to exit the round on an even turn – when you’ve bought as much as you’ve drunk – by declining a further round with the words: “No it’s alright, thanks. I’m only going to have one more so I’ll get this myself.” The chances are the person buying will insist on buying you the drink regardless, and it’s perfectly fine to accept if you have made a candid effort to buy your own drink. Respond with “Ah cheers, I’ll get you back the next night.”

Sometimes with The Round you’ll finish up having consumed more drinks than you bought. Sometimes you will finish down, having bought more drink than you consumed. As long as you have made somewhat of a concerted effort to even out your share, it’s all good. The mysterious magic of The Round means it all eventually balances out in the end.

Autumn issue of Outsider magazine

Right now, there are four particularly special bothies across Ireland. Though familiar to adventurers and hikers as basic shelters usually left unlocked and available for public use, these bothies are a little different. First of all, their locations are secret. Known as 4Bothies, you can only find them if you follow clues on the 4Bothies.com website. The project is the brainchild of Irish filmmaker Luke Franklin, who, alongside a team of other talented folks, built these distinctive bothies in the north, south, east and west of Ireland. Jane Lawrenson finds out more.

Despite the fact that the 4Bothies started as a final project for his master’s degree in art and science, Luke Franklin says it probably actually began when he asked for a drill one Christmas.

From there it grew. Taking the notion that art shouldn’t just be the preserve of the ‘soft hands’ contingent and that it should be taken out of the gallery, Franklin and his team set about building four bothies over a period of four months, with the final piece reaching completion in mid-spring.

Oh, and they’re hidden. People must visit the 4Bothies website (4bothies.com) and accept the challenge of solving a mystery and taking on an expedition to find them. They’ll have only a few images and some words to guide them to the secret locations of the bothies.

Yo, twentysomethings, listen-up! As well as completing your education, perfecting the art of cohabitation, navigating hazardous relationships, finding a partner, seeing a little of the world and trying to get your feet on the career ladder, you also need to consider this decade as the most important of your entire life. Screw this up and you’re destined to spend your life as a withered, old spinster hag with zero career prospects. At least, according to clinical psychologist Meg Jay.