The Project Arts Centre has reached an amicable settlement with its outgoing visual arts director, Valerie Connor, writes Aidan Dunne. Connor was informed late last year that her contract would not be renewed in January as her post would no longer exist.
When news of this broke, Project's artistic director Kathy McArdle found herself facing an unprecedented level of criticism from the arts community, particularly as visual arts programming at the centre seemed to be going the way of Connor's contract. In fact, as of now, Project still lacks a visual arts programme for 2001, despite the centre's protestations that the visual arts strand of its activities was not being down-graded.
In the event, what sounds like a revised post, "curator of visual arts" (rather than "visual arts director") will, Project says, be advertised imminently. As it happens there is a visual arts curator on the Project staff, in the form of Tim Brennan, late of Arthouse multimedia centre. But he is there in another position, one created by Kathy McArdle last year: curator of talks and critical events. There is no visual arts practitioner on the board since sculptor Alanna O'Kelly resigned.
In the meantime, perhaps the hiatus in the visual arts programme is regarded as a useful budgetary exercise, who knows? Certainly, if the same principle were to be extended to the rest of the centre's activities, the savings could be really impressive.
Cork City Ballet celebrates its new professional status and begins its first countrywide tour later this month, thanks to a trebling of the company's Arts Council grant to £25,200 (€32,000). The programme, which will be performed in Cork, Limerick, Dublin and Galway, combines classic works from the repertoire such as Fokine's The Dying Swan solo with recent pieces such as Eve, choreographed by Cork dancer Patricia Crosbie; Roystan Muldoon's Celebration; Andrew Wilson's Zoku, and Femme, choreographed by Jane Kellagan, with music by Portishead.
Asaf Messear's pas de deux, Spring Waters, which is rarely performed outside Russia, will be danced by Perm State Ballet's prima ballerina, Elena Koulagina, and principal dancer Alexander Volkov.
Monica Loughman, the only Irish dancer with Perm State Ballet, returns to partner the company's founder and artistic director, Alan Foley, in the appropriately titled Celebration. Ballet Spectacular 2001 opens at Cork Opera House on March 20th.
As nine new, purpose-built theatres are scheduled to open this year, the campaign to save an existing one gathers steam. A local committee has been formed to save the Regal Theatre in Clonmel from demolition by persuading the local authority, Tipperary (SR) County Council, to purchase it and turn it into a municipal theatre. Currently in private ownership, the 72-year-old theatre has been on the market since late January. "We have been hugely encouraged by letters and pledges of support, not to mention the hundreds of signatures being collected in a public petition," says management consultant Pat Fleming, chairman of the committee. The committee's planned meeting with county council members on Monday was deferred due to the foot-and-mouth crisis.
For information on the campaign contact Aisling Kilroy, committee secretary, on 052-35384 or write to Save Our Regal Theatre, The Cottage, Orchardstown, Lisronagh, Clonmel, Co Tipperary.
Contemporary dance enthusiasts have an opportunity to watch CoisC eim Dance Theatre at close quarters from March 20th to 22nd. The company's three-day programme, Naked, is, unusually, open to all. It will combine professional classes with an exploration of the choreographic process, and aims to introduce newcomers to the basics elements of movement. Physical theatre and dance practitioner, Liam Steel, will preside, and the company will perform David Bolger's exhilarating work, Ballads, in an intimate setting.
Naked takes place at the Samuel Beckett Studio, TCD and admission is free, but places are limited. Further information from Miriam Kehoe: 01-6704906
