Before heading off to to the Edinburgh Festival, Eileen McClory, choreographer with Off the Rails Dance Company, has been rehearsing for the Belfast 2024 extravaganza 'ROOTS' which will happen in the Black Mountain shared space new community gardens.

From workshops with the Black Mountain Community, she has created a multi-dimensional dance theatre piece which will include stories, feelings on the peace wall and ideas for the future.

Explains the Festival website: "Guided by captivating sound design, you will watch, listen, move, touch, and connect in an engaging journey through the Garden. Inspired by nature, community, and the future, ROOTS invites you to immerse yourself in a vibrant celebration of growth and unity."

The audience will be divided into three groups and given a pair of headphones to take around different part of the shared space to look, touch and see.

Belfast 2024 was to encourage people into new places in the city with culture so for many it may be the first time they get an opportunity to visit this shared space.

For others it's about dance culture coming right into their part of the city to meet then on their doorstep.The event aims to help transform a shared but contested space: Belfast's 'million brick peace wall' that divides the Springmartin and Springfield communities.

McClory was one of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's major individual award winners in 2022. She used the award to develop 'Gutter' about the changes in the print media and how the way news is being created.

Since then her career has taken off with this commission and an Arts Council of Northern Ireland Fellowship Bursary to go to Edinburgh Fringe festival this year. We look forward to see the fruits of this Fellowship award. 

The event is part of the Belfast International Festival and runs from 10-18 August; performances are at 3pm and  7pm tickets are £13 with £10 concession. Available on the Belfast International Festival website. The performances are outdoors so they encourage you to dress for the weather.