6 FREE Workshops
6 Artists + 4 Creative Team Employed
100 Children and Young people Ages 10 -25 attended
This summer, The Civic was buzzing with energy, skill and laughter as over 100 children and young people dived into the Gravity Shift Programme (June–August 2025). Across six FREE high-energy workshops, participants discovered new ways to move, climb, flip, fly and tell stories through their bodies.
With world-class artists Sasha Krohn, Glenn McMahon & the Dublin Parkour team, and Fidget Feet’s Sara Granda & Sly, every session brought young people out of their seats and into full physical motion—jumping, balancing, tumbling, dancing and even soaring into the air!
Physical Theatre Workshop: Embodying Storytelling with Sasha Krohn
On 25 June, Sasha invited 18–25 year olds to a high-impact workshop exploring the body as the main tool of performance. Using mime, Lecoq, dance and acrobatics, participants discovered how to communicate stories, emotions and characters without words—just movement. This session built strength, physical awareness, and confidence while connecting theatre to the physical power of the body.
Dublin Parkour Workshops
From 7–9 July, 60 young people (ages 10–18) got the chance to leap, roll and vault with professional parkour coaches Glenn McMahon, Aaron Keogh and Dylan Cooper. Each session began with an introduction to parkour culture worldwide, then quickly moved into hands-on training. Using equipment, and later the Civic’s outdoor walls and rails, participants learned fundamental parkour skills in a safe and supportive environment. These workshops were a hit—young people ran, jumped, and tested their limits while learning how movement can transform everyday spaces into playgrounds for creativity and strength.
Fidget Feet Workshops
On 12 August, 21 young participants got airborne with Fidget Feet’s Sara Granda and Sly. Mixing aerial movement with hip hop dance, the workshops combined rhythm, strength and flight into one unforgettable experience. Young people climbed, swung, spun, and danced—exploring how aerial circus skills can blend with street culture and hip hop to create powerful performances. Sara and Sly encouraged everyone to stay creative, stay physical, and push themselves to try new ways of moving.
What Gravity Shift Means
The Gravity Shift Programme showed how exciting it can be for children and young people to get moving—whether climbing walls, flipping through the air, or telling stories through the body.
The Civic is proud to support and produce this programme, giving young people the chance to build confidence, learn new skills, and experience the joy of movement-based art. We can’t wait to see this vibrant area of storytelling through dance, aerial, circus, mime, and street art continue to grow across South Dublin and beyond.
Gravity Shift 2025 was proudly supported by Creative Ireland / South Dublin County Council
More about the Artists
Sasha Krohn is an interdisciplinary artist based in County Wexford, Ireland, whose work spans aerial acrobatics, dance, mime, physical theatre, visual art, and music. With over 14 years of experience, Sasha’s creative journey is rooted in the art of movement and storytelling, shaped by global performance and deep collaborative practice. He has performed across Russia, Japan, and Europe, refining his craft through both training and performances with acclaimed companies such as Punchdrunk, DV8, 45 Degrees (Cirque du Soleil) and more. In 2024, he debuted the critically acclaimed solo piece The Weight of Shadow at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival—a five-star reviewed exploration of psychological unraveling over 24 hours. Plans are underway for a national and international tour in 2025–26, alongside a new collaborative project with Simon Gleave (Jeudi/Flabbergast Theatre/David Glass Ensemble), named “cAnarY”.
Dublin Parkour was founded by Glenn McMahon, Also known to many as Pickles. He has been honing his parkour skills & craft and coaching for the last 15 years. Glenn is from Dublin. He grew up around Blanchardstown village and was a competitive swimmer growing up as a kid and his parents always encouraged physical activities and adventure. When Glenn was 12 he enjoyed skateboarding and rollerblading although he was never very good at these sports, he loved the idea of street cultures and became enthralled with the videos of extreme sports. When he was in first year of secondary school his friend Connor found parkour on the internet before facebook or instagram or tik tok existed back in 2007. He found videos of Parkour on the internet and began trying to replicate what he saw in the videos. A lot of time passed and many friend groups joined in the fun and dropped away from the bizarre activity. He found a website where people were organising jams(meetups) in Dublin and quickly joined them and began to learn so much about movement in a massive community full of people from all over Ireland, exchanging their experiences with trying the sport. Over time, Ireland had a lot of visitors from different countries around the world and connections began, traveling to see these other communities’ training methods became a part of his lifestyle.
“Parkour is learning how to use your body for purpose, climbing, running, jumping, and also learning how to use your body in a stylish creative way, the idea is to challenge yourself, add to your skill bank and be creative with your surroundings, whether that be in a city or in the forest. Like music there are many different genres of parkour and movement in general.”
Glenn is very keen to continue to grow Dublin Parkour, and the wider Parkour community around all of Ireland continue traveling and learning techniques.Dublin gets a level up! New Parkour Park in action 😎👀
Fidget Feet Aerial Dance Theatre is based in Wexford and established in 1998 to create and nurture the aerial dance sector in Ireland, and developing connections and collaborations. During this time they have created and toured over 35 shows ranging from indoor, outdoor, crane, and vertical dance performances around iconic Irish landmarks, shows for young audiences, community development regionally, professional development through establishing Ireland’s first aerial dance festival and training center. These performances and opportunities take place throughout the country to make the art form accessible to all. They have achieved this through hard work, successful partnerships with venues, educational institutes, festivals and funding bodies such as Creative Europe, and the Arts and Cultural Capital Scheme 2016.
In 2010, with An Grianán Theatre and the Donegal County Council, Fidget Feet founded the Irish Aerial Dance Fest – one of the largest aerial festivals in Europe. Run annually the Irish Aerial Dance Fest hosts more than 100 classes over two weeks, and is attended by participants from all over the world. Fidget Feet are artists in residence at the prestigious Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. In 2013 Fidget Feet were awarded an Arthur Guinness Project award for the Irish Aerial Creation Centre, a new home for aerial in Ireland, which opened in Limerick in 2015.
Fidget Feet are an internationally renowned aerial dance company that recently collaborated with Tobi Omotesa creating Ireland’s first aerial hip h’Oprea, H.O.M.E. funded by Arts Council and commissioned by Carlow Arts Festival, Cairde and Eargail Arts Festival, touring nationally in 2025. Through a unique fusion of aerial choreography, contemporary dance with original music their shows are unique with high energy.
