Aggression. Sensuality. Vulnerability. Hard to Be Soft is a dance prayer about — and for — the people of Belfast.

Created by Belfast-based choreographer and dancer Oona Doherty, with driving music by DJ David Holmes (Killing Eve, Ocean’s Eleven, Hunger), Hard to Be Soft looks behind the masks of violence and machismo to the inner lives of Belfast hard men and strong women.

Cast in four episodes, Hard to Be Soft features solos from Doherty herself, a warrior-like hip-hop dance group, and a choreographed wrestling match for a male duet. Using rich, sometimes unsettling imagery from Belfast street life and religious ritual, and set inside a massive, gleaming cage, it contrasts shocking power with meditative stillness.

Oona Doherty is a multi-award-winning choreographer who creates intense, compelling works that appeal for societal change. Hard to Be Soft is a physical prayer celebrating all that we have and an invocation for what we are missing.

Download the programme here