Is it a bird? A bat? A butterfly? A plane? No, it’s Kate Lawrence, aerial dancer extraordinaire, and tomorrow you can catch her atop Belfast City Hall! Maeve from W[r]ite Noise has been chatting with her ahead of the Fly Butterfly event…

You are working on a PhD at University of Surrey – what is your research area and what is the working title of your thesis?

I’ve been working on the PhD for about 3 years, but my full-time job means that it is going at a snails pace and I keep withdrawing from the programme to buy time! My research area is vertical dance, which I have divided into three main areas of interest: rock climbing analysed as dance; harness work on buildings and buildering or urban climbing. I’m particularly interested in vertical dance as a spatial practice in which the body of the climber or dancer negotiates borders and boundaries and navigates vertical territories using a multiplicity of sensibilities, knowledges and skills. There’s lots more of course, but that is probably the nub of it.

The aerial dance you are co-ordinating is to celebrate the re-opening of one of Belfast’s most iconic buildings, the City Hall. How did the idea come about to mark the re-opening with aerial dance and makes this a good building for aerial dance?

I was asked by the Beat to contribute to the opening ceremony of City Hall, and it is a real honour, but also quite a challenge. Of course I think it is an excellent idea to mark the occasion with some vertical dance as it really highlights the building and literally places bodies on the building, which could be seen as a metaphor for the building opening its arms to all. City Hall is a very ornate building, so the challenge has been to fit the dance around its columns and ledges and curlicues. In this sense the architecture has been a partner in the structuring of the dance and the kind of movement that can be performed at different points. Because the building is so architecturally complex, the challenge is to work with this; to complement the building rather than get lost on it!

You may have heard that as part of the City Hall reopening celebrations, a time capsule will be buried today which won’t be opened until City Hall’s 200th anniversary in 2105. What three items would you put in a time capsule to represent your life today?

Mobile phone, laptop and harness!

And finally – how can people find out more about aerial dance and get involved themselves?
People in Belfast can get in touch with The Beat Initiative. On the back of this project there is a strong group of dancers, circus artists, actors and gymnasts who have been training with me, and they also train regularly on their own. It is really good fun, but very important to make sure that you get qualified people teaching you for obvious safety reasons. And they can also come down to City Hall tomorrow afternoon to watch us perform at Fly Butterfly!