Aerial dance company cleared for take-off in South East Clare

CLARE County Council has approved the subdivision of an industrial building at a business park in Gillogue to facilitate the retention of its use as a training and education centre for aerial dancing.

Retention planning permission has been granted subject to one planning condition allowing the Irish Aerial Creation Centre (IACC) to construct a three-storey internal partition and insulating of the building fabric at Unit 2, Burlington Business Park, Gillogue.

The Irish Aerial Creation Centre in the Old Burlington Industrial Estate, Gillogue, Corbally, is the first and only purpose-built aerial dance centre anywhere in Ireland.

The IACC is a not-for-profit organisation, which is committed to the education and development of Irish aerial arts. It has over 625 square meters of space dedicated to nurturing dancers of all ages.

A submission from Europlan Engineering on behalf of the IACC outlined the proposed use is for education and training for the Irish Aerial Arts.

“It is proposed to construct an internal three-storey structure to include for offices, toilets, changing rooms and more dance areas.

“It is further proposed to install a moveable partition internally to the building. There will be no works to the external of the building.

“The activity in the building involves aerial dancing, which requires high roof heights and strong steel beams at roof level to allow the performers the space and height to perform. Only buildings with high eaves heights such as allowed by portal frame structures are suitable for this type of activity.

“There is a very strong link between the IACC and the University of Limerick meaning the location needs to be adjacent to the university campus.

“Access from the campus can be made via the North Campus, which is linked to the main campus via two bridges. Given this requirement and the building requirement, there is no real existing alternative to this location for the IACC.”

Having regard to the existing use of the site, the site specific zoning and nature of use applied for, the policies of the Clare County Development Plan and the pattern of development in the area, the planning authority considered the proposed development would be in accordance with the proper planning and development of the area.

The development has to be completed in accordance with the drawings and particulars as received by the planning authority on November 8, 2022.

A submission from the Department of Culture confirmed the letter of offer containing a commitment to provide funding up to €350,000 to the IACC, which was issued on February 22, 2022 is still valid, subject to the terms and conditions of the agreed Service Level Agreement.

There will be a maximum of 40 people in the proposed unit at any given time. Given the current unit is 466 square metres, this gives an occupancy load factor of 11.65.

This is less than the occupancy load factor for the old use of industrial given in the Technical Guidance Document.

The submission state noise will not exceed the levels outlined in Clare’s Development Management and Design Guidelines.

The proposed hours of operation are 9am to 9pm on weekdays, 9am to 6pm on Saturdays and 11 am to 5pm on Sundays.

In 2016, the IACC was also awarded a capital JP McManus Benevolent Fund for circus equipment. Then in 2017 IACC was awarded a capital grant of €350,000 from The Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. This project is a flagship project with match funding from LCCC.

Thanks to Creative Ireland and Limerick City and County Council, the IACC has worked on two collaborative projects with other youth groups. The first was a project involving the Irish Chamber Orchestra Youth Orchestra (ICOYO).

Their youth performance group worked over a period of months on their creativity and performance skills, and with the help of Fidget Feet tutors and weekend intensives, brought it all together with the music of ICOYO in 2019.

The second project expanded the collaboration to bring the Limerick Youth Dance Company (LYDC) into the group. All three youth groups hosted a workshop where they explored the potential of their collaboration, and shared their skills with each other.

In March 2020, they came together to have a sharing of some of these ideas, and demonstrate the possibilities of combining aerial, dance, and music.