Double helpings for the kids

Children were spoilt for choice between Galway Arts Festival and Project '06 - a welcome change, writes Lorna Siggins

Small people don't make credit card bookings, don't get first night invites, don't do the schmooze at the festival club. If there has been one positive outcome to colliding arts programmes in Galway city over the past fortnight, it has been that small people do count for more than an annual Macnas afternoon.

They certainly count to artist Dara McGee, out with his hammer and nails in the rain in Fr Burke Park near the Claddagh on the first festival weekend. The night before, some 50 primed white plywood panels attached by him to 25 sets of fencing posts stood like expectant spectres under a summer moon.

Quickly mending the palettes damaged by revellers, McGee set up his stall with pencils, brushes, acrylic paint, rolls of kitchen towel and assisting artists Ger Ward, Isbeal McGee and Lisa Olsthoorn. Joe Boske travelled in from Clifden, and the Connemara community group, Muintearas, provided logistical support.

The result? Several dozen children ignoring the downpours, crouching under golf umbrellas, as they worked and laughed and joked over their masterpieces throughout the morning.

In some ways, the Project 06 plan seemed impossible . . . to leave the completed art works in situ on exhibit throughout the week. How would they survive elements, never mind elephants of the night? Miraculously, most were still standing four days later, with occasional forays required to rescue those struck down . . . by lightning, one would suppose.

Participation in McGee's event for Project '06 was free, but the complementary festival had set a €5 maximum charge for all kids' stuff - both shows and workshops. It was just a euro less than the official Galway Arts Festival (GAF) price, but the broader choice in the alternative programme proved to be hugely successful - given the fact that supply has never met demand for the few children's events programmed by GAF in recent years. The walls of Galway Rowing Club hummed and drummed to three-ball circus tricks, balloon modelling, tai chi and yoga, while the Galway Circus Project and associate jugglers took to the park and the streets.

There were five days of storytelling, with Clare Murphy and her Stagecraft associates, including Jonathan Gunning and Rab Fulton, captivating minds with faraway fables and spooky Scottish tales. St Nicholas's Primary School was the venue for Pignut Productions.

Up the street, the Mercy National School hosted the delightful adventures of a neoprene Fionn and his encounter with warrior Fineagas in The Salmon of Wisdom by Your Man's Puppets. Branar Drámaíochta Teo promised "ceol beo" and "na pupéid draíochtúla" (magical puppets) in Na Síoga agus an Gréasaí (The Elves and the Shoemaker) at An Taibhdhearc theatre studio, and NUI Galway Dramsoc produced its own version of Roald Dahl's revolting nursery rhymes and Fantastic Mr Fox.

There were concerns that such choice-spoiling might have an impact on ticket sales. However, as Lali Morris of the annual children's art festival, Baboro, noted, there were crowds of kids and parents everywhere. Sure enough, there was more than enough buzz during a final performance of Them with Tails by Felix Hayes and Andrew Paton for GAF in the Radisson.

Mark Doherty and Mikel Murfi brought The Clerk And The Clown to the Druid Theatre.

With that flippant air of Flanders and Swan about them, they related an Indian story of the jackal and the alligator, a Russian fable about a hungry clay pot boy, and the final hilarious yarn created by the audience themselves involved a victim who had to be eaten - nominated with much noisy approval as the President of the USA.

The streets were a paradise, with lots of opportunities for younger participation in both programmes - be it in either of the two parades, GAF's Bizzarium Street Aquarium by Les Sages Fous, Spanish cops on stilts (Cirq Civil for GAF), or Project 06's hilarious Gombeen Theatre Troupe Zest-Feist in the grounds of St Nicholas's Church.

Lali Morris was particularly struck by sculptural installations made from scrap by Spanish artist Guixot, placed in several venues as part of GAF. Down at Spanish Arch, the public reaction to the "Prof Branestawm" egg catchers was almost as intriguing as the exhibits.

And while Project '06 had a plethora, GAF hosted one highly successful children's workshop at the Galway Arts Centre over the fortnight. The "Cups and Crowns" initiative allowed two groups of a dozen children to "take creative control" of their own response to one of the many visual art exhibits.

The chosen exhibit was Ori Gersht's 13-minute film, The Forest. Once part of a vast primeval forest covering much of Europe, the Ukrainian woodland had been idealised during the Enlightenment period, epitomised by the German Romantic artist Caspar David Friedrich, and brutalised by atrocities committed there during the second World War.

The participants performed drama with Fiona McDonagh on the first day, viewed the film and worked on clay modelling with Sharon Lynch, wrote about their responses with Susan Millar du Mars, made mosaics with Alison MacCormaic, and produced their own presentation and exhibition, which continues this week upstairs in the Galway Arts Centre.

Lali Morris isn't surprised at the success of the children's dimension. Baboro - which was originally part of GAF - has attracted audiences of 10,000 during its October week in recent years, and has strong links with a number of children's festivals extending from Mayo (Roola Boola) to Dublin (the Ark and the Helix) during that same autumn month. If she has one small criticism, it is the absence of a good GAF family show - a slot filled in recent years by the upside-down, inside-out physical theatrics of Victoria Thierrée Chaplin and her children, James and Aurelia.

"Project '06 has given a particular fillip to excellent local talent which is already making a big impact in schools across the country," Morris agrees. "There's been a brilliant pooling of community resources," she says.

Morris hosts the 10th annual Baboro International Children's Festival from October 16th to 22nd, also in Galway.