ARTS: The guard is changing in Ireland's arts world, as a rake of new appointments opens up possibilities for change and fresh vision in cultural institutions across the country. Shane Hegarty profiles 10 of the new faces.
If you were to look at the state of affairs in that amorphous area referred to as 'the arts', you might be inclined to think that everything isn't quite right. Where has everyone gone? In the past year, directors, chief executives and managing directors of many of the pivotal festivals, organisations and companies have resigned, found good jobs somewhere else, or left for other reasons.
Maria Moynihan left St Patrick's Festival; Fergus Linehan will be moving on from the Dublin Theatre Festival; Patricia Quinn resigned from the Arts Council after much controversy. Even Rod Stoneman, who seemed to have arrived sometime around the birth of cinema, left his post at Bord Scannána hÉireann.
Those who are moving on have, in many cases, been responsible for establishing or expanding their companies and events. They guided them, with varying success, through years of uncertainty, when money was scarce and the future uncertain. After the boom years, the early part of the decade saw the funding stagnate across the arts, while the film industry came close to losing its vital tax incentives.
Coincidence has brought their contracts to a near-simultaneous conclusion so that at a time when there is a little more optimism for the future, there has been a timely influx of new blood. From the top jobs in the most important bodies in the arts to the heads of small theatre companies, there has been a change of the guard.
What is just as notable is how many of the new appointments are coming from outside Ireland. Mark Woods of Bord Scannán na hÉireann is an Irishman returning home to a climate different to the one he left a decade ago, while three festival directors are coming from north America and Germany to take up posts. Each is hugely respected already and they claim that they have been attracted by a country and culture they see as vibrant and important.
Their appointments might be seen as an internationalisation of our attitudes, but also as a sign that many of our festivals have international reputations. The trick, perhaps, will be in balancing this reputation with the crucial role of encouraging Irish talent, commissioning new works and providing a platform for new Irish theatre and art. On top of that will be the need to sell tickets. Dreams don't always match reality, and most of them will have one eye on Mary Cloake and the Arts Council as it reshapes its strategy and controls the purse strings.
The world of the Irish arts has seldom been straightforward, and crises come with the territory, as the Abbey discovered recently. But for the moment, there is a fresh breeze blowing through the streets. Added to the new personnel, Cork is the 2005 European City of Culture.
When one talks to the people featured here, there is an obvious collective enthusiasm. Of course, each is at the beginning of something important to them personally, but each also has the chance to shape the future of their respective fields. It should be a very interesting year.
DON SHIPLEY
Director of the Dublin Theatre Festival
"It's a career move, but it's a spiritual one as well," says the Canadian, who will become the first non-Irish director of the Dublin Theatre Festival when he takes over from Fergus Linehan after this year's event. "In terms of a festival it is one of the rarest in the English-language world. There are lots of arts festivals, but few left that are purely theatre festivals. It's one of the oldest and a rare breed."
Shipley comes laden down with awards for his work, having led some of Canada's most prestigious theatre companies and arts organisations. Having taken charge of Toronto's du Maurier World Stage Festival, he has a black book that could bring in some interesting artists.
Given the recent successes of the Dublin festival, he admits that his timing is good, but his wider challenge is to "increase its visibility and profile, both within the city and around the world". More directly, he says that "quality has to be at the core of every festival and I have to continue to maintain that. The engine for that has to be cultural collaborations and experiments with other disciplines. We must initiate new work as well as cherry-pick from what is already there." He has visited the festival several times before, but this will be quite a change from sitting in the audience.
FIONA KEARNEY
Curator of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork
"I think it's one of the most stunning buildings in Ireland," says Fiona Kearney of the new Lewis Glucksman Gallery, opening this month in Cork. "I'm blessed." The 32-year-old moved from her role as UCC's visual arts officer to be the first curator of a gallery set to be one of Cork's cultural landmarks. When it opens on October 15th, the UCC building will play host to international art of the highest calibre and, while it was planned long before Cork was awarded the title of European Capital of Culture, it will be one of the gems of the 2005 programme. "It has been a useful calling card. Doors have opened because of it."
The gallery is a curator's dream. Designed by O'Donnell and Tuomey Architects at a cost of €12 million ("you could put an extra zero on that and no one would blink; it's that stunning") it is purpose-built to the highest standard, so that international works can be loaned to it. Although UCC has an extensive collection, the Glucksman will not feature any permanent exhibition and will concentrate on international works, often by living artists.
Kearney is understandably thrilled at the prospects. "It is a landmark project very much for a public audience. It is something that will give us not just local, but international confidence."
NOEL CURRAN
Managing director of television, RTÉ
When Noel Curran last year became the station's youngest ever MD at only 37, almost the first thing he did was pull the plug on a €20 million teen soap that was already 12 months into production. "It was the most difficult decision I've had to make. But I've no regrets."
Given that Curran has a responsibility for spending much of your licence fee, it was a good sign - not only that he realised spending much of it in one shop could be disastrous down the line, but also of his ambitions to shape the future now.
As producer of Prime Time, Curran was credited with bringing it to its current heights, especially through its investigative team. His stated aim is now to find fresh talent behind the camera and new faces in front of it; to build programmes around personalities, rather than to throw them at shows in the hope that they stick. "Des Bishop's show was built around him, it was all about his personality. We need to do more of those type of programmes, although it's not as straightforward as it might seem."
It will mean more focus on home-produced television. "Irish people have a massive appetite for looking at and listening to ourselves."
Meanwhile, Network 2 is being re-branded as RTÉ2, and within RTÉ, several of the new management positions are being filled by younger people. Eleven months in, Curran feels pretty comfortable. "It's gone better than I could have predicted. It has been mad. Mad but good."
CLAUDIA WOOLGAR
Artistic director of the Kilkenny Arts Festival
Claudia Woolgar's first festival was certainly varied. In August, it brought rock music at Woodstock Gardens, Cuban cinema, site-specific dance, plays in Tudor townhouses, Eastern European music, ambitious puppetry, aural art installations and a dedicated Fringe. It's no wonder that when she was asked what she was most looking forward to about this year's event, Woolgar replied "my holiday afterwards".
Under her, the festival has been compared to the daddy of them all, the Edinburgh Festival, but Kilkenny is neither as frenetic nor as intimidating. Meanwhile, comedy is looked after by its own festival. So, what has evolved is a relaxed festival, popular with artists and with a growing artistic reputation. Yet, Woolgar has been keen to keep a focus on Irish artists. She has shown a particular interest in opening up the arts for those who mightn't normally feel included, and this means outreach programmes as well as a more straightforwardly popular fireworks display. It confirms a festival with its roots in home soil, but with international ambitions. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien
LIAM HALLIGAN
Artistic director of Storytellers
Having put the past five years of his life into developing the Quare Hawks theatre company, Liam Halligan is putting that on hold to replace Mary Elizabeth Burke-Kennedy at Storytellers Theatre Company in Dublin. "I think it would be a bit greedy to expect the Arts Council to fund me in two companies. There are lots of first-time directors who could do with that funding."
Among his aims with Storytellers is to foster new talent, with plans for weekend workshops for aspiring directors and also to have an assistant director learning the ropes with each project. Meanwhile, two of the Quare Hawks productions will be adopted by Storytellers. Alongside Weird Tales, based on the life of an Irish writer popular in Japan, Lafcadio Hearn, he has also commissioned Paul Meade to write a play on the lives of Latvian, Romanian and Polish immigrants working the Irish land.
"That was partly the reason I started Quare Hawks, because there were lots of things happening that are not reflected on the stage, such as young male suicide or how difficult it is to be homosexual outside Dublin. I didn't see these problems debated and while theatre should be entertainment, it should also acknowledge important current issues and trends."
Storytellers, though, will continue its tradition of adapting other works, and he is keen to attract younger audiences. "We don't have to dumb down to do it," says Halligan.
MARK WOODS
Chief executive, Irish Film Board
Mark Woods might have picked a better time to take this job. When he arrived in October of last year, the entire industry was holding its breath as it awaited word on whether the all-important tax-incentives would remain or not. They have, and Woods has been able to concentrate on recovering from that stumble.
"It was a bizarre and terrifying time," Woods told Film Ireland magazine about his first few months in the job. "When I joined, there was an element of nervousness in this industry." The 33-year-old Dubliner had returned from Australia, where he had spent six years as a journalist for Variety, before becoming head of international acquisitions and local content at Showtime, a premium film and television channel in Australia.
Among his jobs was finding scripts and cash for movies, which included the international hit Rabbit Proof Fence. Woods brings his experience of working in Australia's buoyant film industry to Ireland, whose film scene has lost its edge in recent years. However, international productions have picked up, and the success of Intermission has encouraged the independent film sector here. Woods's proven eye for finding good scripts will hopefully pay dividends in time. A year is a short time in film-making, so his influence will be most likely not be felt until we get deep into 2005. Photograph: Matt Kavanagh
DAVID AGLER
Artistic director of Wexford Festival Opera
Agler is part of the foreign invasion. The 53-year-old returns to a festival he conducted at in the late 1990s, but this time as artistic director. He will take over from Luigi Ferrari after this month's event. Agler already has international experience, having previously served as music director at Vancouver Opera, as principal conductor at Australian Opera and resident conductor at San Francisco Opera. Agler participated in the Wexford Festival as a guest conductor in 1996, when he conducted Sarka, and in 2000, when he conducted Si j'étais roi.
He takes on the Wexford Festival at a time when things have not been running altogether smoothly. While it still has strong audiences and remains a crucial event to the town, its reputation has been damaged by a row over the decision to replace the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Belarus. The subsequent drop in standards, coupled with complaints that it has used increasingly fewer Irish singers and musicians, has been heavily criticised. His first major test is likely to involve sorting this out.
WOLFGANG HOFFMAN
Incoming director of the Dublin Fringe Festival
"I care very much for the artists," says Wolfgang Hoffman. "I hate when you perform at a festival and you meet the person who gives you your money, and he says 'I didn't see your show'. You wonder, what's the point?!"
The new director of the Dublin Fringe Festival speaks from experience. As artistic director of Aurora Nova, with its programme of physical theatre, dance and music, the 37-year-old German has performed all over the world, and was greeted with acclaim at this year's Edinburgh Festival.
"I believe that Ireland really suffers from how its great artists tend to emigrate to cultural hotspots. It's important that audiences are confronted with other international works and internationalism. But it would also be good to create a platform for reverse movement, to encourage Irish artists to return and international ones to move to Ireland to work."
Hoffman has reasons for moving here other than his career. His wife is Irish, and they had a son only two months ago. "My life is turning on its head," he laughs. He will continue to perform, if not so regularly, and those who would like an introduction before he takes up his new job in November can catch him performing in Pandora 88 at the Pavilion Theatre, Dún Laoghaire, early that month.
MARY CLOAKE
Director of the Arts Council
It has not been a good year for the Arts Council, with the ditching of a five-year arts plan, much in-fighting and ultimately the resignation of director Patricia Quinn. Eventually, Mary Cloake emerged as the new director of an organisation that is at the crossroads. She was seen as something of a safe appointment: as development director, she was an insider who already knew both the organisation and the artists and had developed a reputation as a communicator and "honest broker", something which will be invaluable when dealing with so many arts groups vying for limited cash.
While she was originally aligned with Quinn's changes to the structure of the Arts Council, she is not seen as someone likely to rock the boat. She is both liked and respected, but some within the artistic community might have preferred a bolder appointment. Chairperson Olive Braiden has undoubtedly become a dominant personality, and has said that the Arts Council is undergoing "a fundamental re-examination of the its vision, mission and values". Cloake will be the one expected to put this into practice.
She officially took up the post of Director of the Arts Council on 1st September. "Since then, two major events were the opening of the Clifden Community Arts Week and the send-off for the Sao Paolo Biennale artists," she says. "These events seemed to illustrate what the Arts Council is fundamentally about - supporting people to develop and realise their artistic ideas, whether expressed through local or international, individual or collective channels."
DONAL SHIELS
Chief executive of St Patrick's Festival
Originally a dancer, the 39-year-old Dubliner has taken on the job of organising the country's biggest annual party. "St Patrick's Day is something everyone celebrates. It has an international appeal." To that end, he is hoping to broaden a festival that has already begun to spread in recent years. Having crept outwards after being initially confined to the capital, he hopes that the brand will now spread both further within and outside Ireland.
Shiels has gained some understanding of these possibilities as the manager of the Chinese Ireland Cultural Exchange programme, which is now in its final weeks. He has "loved every minute" of what has been a successful bit of cultural cross-fertilisation. The large scale and budget of that post means that he doesn't feel intimidated by what he's taking on.
"I'm excited by it. First and foremost I was already aware of the reputation of the team behind the festival. A big attraction for me, though, was that the event exists on different levels and forms, that it's not just arts but culture, too." Does he feel the responsibility of taking on such a public occasion? "It's fine," he says pragmatically. "You'd expect that. It's the job. But I'm honoured to be doing it."