Leading NI Circus Artist, Christopher McAuley, set to premiere new work, ITCH, at the 19th Outburst Queer Arts Festival
28th October, 2025
Outburst Arts, Northern Ireland’s award-winning queer arts organisation, is back with their exciting annual international festival from 14-22 November 2025 in venues across Belfast. One of this year’s highlights is ITCH, written and performed by North Belfast circus artist Christopher McAuley, which premieres at this year’s festival.
Produced by Circusful in co-production with Outburst Arts, ITCH is a visually delightful, funny and moving performance by acclaimed circus artist Christopher McAuley, that looks at the ways we impose expectations and norms on our bodies and how we live joyfully in spite of it. Mixing theatre, trapeze, visuals and a conversation with his dad, this beautiful and deeply personal show will take you on an adventure in radical self-acceptance like you’ve never experienced before.
Watch the video below.
ITCH was developed through Outburst’s Brewing Showcase, a talent development programme which aims to support the creation of new work from local artists and offer a pipeline to showing the work, not only to audiences in NI but potentially internationally too, helping to put NI arts on the cultural map.
Ruth McCarthy, Artistic Director, Outburst Arts, said, “We are delighted to present the 19th Outburst Queer Arts Festival and as ever, the programme is a mix of great local professional work, up and coming work, and some fantastic work that we're bringing in internationally, plus lots of talks, discussions, films, music, dance, and even a karaoke with the wonderful Array Collective on our closing night.
As part of the festival every year we have the Brewing Showcase, which is where up to five artists can have 15 minutes to try out something. Often what happens from that showcase is that we see works with a real spark in them and definitely saw that with Christopher's ITCH, a powerful and inspiring piece of work!"
Gilly Campbell, Director of Arts Development, Arts Council of Northern Ireland added, “The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is proud to be Outburst’s long-term core funder and this year’s festival reminds us just what an empowering force the arts can be. The programme is bold and innovative with international and local work celebrated – a true reflection of the best of Queer art in Northern Ireland and beyond. The Arts Council is committed to supporting the development of our artists and the creation of new work, and Outburst Arts’ Brewing Showcase offers an important platform to achieve this. I would encourage everyone to go along and support this terrific festival, a major celebration of queer arts.”
Other highlights this year includes: music from The Belfast Ensemble who present Conor Mitchell’s DUBLIN JACK, a scandalous new queer opera; dance from Desert Grassland Whiptail Lizards: Act 1, a dance-drama that reimagines this species as an all-lesbian fantasy world; literature from IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD (and we feel fine): Why We Love Queer Dystopian Fiction, featuring writers Chi Ta-wei, a queer writer and scholar from Taiwan Hande Ortaç, an author from Türkiye whose work examines life’s challenges through an eco-feminist lens; and I WILL ALWAYS BE LOOKING FOR YOU: A Queer Anthology on Arab Art, a stunning new book from Haven for Artists, a cultural feminist organisation based in Beirut, Lebanon.
From film, visual art exhibitions, Queereoke, Queer Art Markets, theatre, comedy, talks and more, this year’s programme offers something to suit all tastes and the festival prides itself on welcoming everyone, so don’t miss out!
The Outburst Queer Arts Festival runs from 14-22 November. To view the full programme and book tickets visit www.outburstarts.com