Art Scape Edited by Deirdre FalveyIt is not much of a laughing matter, but one would imagine the nasty parasite that has infected Galway's public water supply would provide endless inspiration for parade designers at this year's Galway Arts Festival (GAF), writes Lorna Siggins.
However, Macnas says it can't do the parade, due to lack of funding; so, GAF has been endeavouring to raise the necessary readies for other free street theatre events. Guinness, its principal sponsor to the tune of about €1 million for the past five years, is no longer involved, and so GAF has approached Galway City Council to see if the local authority can increase its annual contribution, which represents about 2 per cent of the festival's €2.5 million budget.
The city council has confirmed that GAF made a submission seeking an extra €160,000 and that no decision has yet been made. It has strenuously denied suggestions that GAF was being favoured in some way, pointing out that the presentation to a corporate policy meeting of the council occurred on April 2nd, the day the local authority's proceedings were dominated by the row over the contaminated water supply.
However, the Western Writers' Centre - Ionad Scríbhneoirí Chaitlin Maude - has written to city manager Joe McGrath seeking a meeting to discuss financial support for its project. Writer and critic Fred Johnston, the centre's manager (who published his novel, The Neon Rose, last night in Charlie Byrne's Bookshop), says the development "opens the gate to all arts' organisations and groups in the city similarly to present their funding case at council meeting level".
"There are many more - and equally exciting - cultural mouths to feed and besides, it is unacceptable that GAF can continue to have such direct access to the city council when Project '06 (last year's alternative festival) clearly pointed up the deficiencies in the festival and the need for a more co-operative approach to the arts in the city," he has said.
McGrath had said he would "revert" to him, Johnston added.
A city council spokeswoman has pointed out that Project '06 was among a number of arts organisations that received grant-aid totalling €315,000 last year and that no one event receives "priority", as Johnston was suggesting.
GAF artistic director Paul Fahy is promising "lots of street celebration", and is hoping that the city council will respond positively in support of that. He has denied suggestions that artists who participated in Project '06 last year will somehow be excluded.
"We have a very strong Galway artists' component, and some will have been involved in Project '06. We're out there, very busy, trying to do as much as we can for artists and for Galway," Fahy says.
IDFI appointment ends rumours
Fanciful speculation had been growing over the past few months as International Dance Festival Ireland (IDFI) found itself without an artistic director, full-time general manager or interim event for this year, writes Michael Seaver. But now comes the rumour-silencing news of Laurie Uprichard's appointment as artistic director. Formerly of Danspace Project in New York, she succeeds Catherine Nunes, whose determination to create an international dance festival predates IDFI's debut on the arts calendar in 2002.
As a successor to the pioneering Nunes, Uprichard is a surprising but significant appointment. She comes to the full-time position with a reputation as an artist-centred programmer and advocate of New York's independent choreographers. And although she is a supporter of local downtown favourites, she hasn't been blind to European-based artists such as Vincent Mantsoe, Martine Pisani and Charles Linehan, all familiar to Irish audiences. Unfashionably, she has championed
French dance in the US and was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French minister for
culture in 2001. She is also the US artistic adviser for the French-US Exchange in Dance.
Uprichard will take up her post in the coming weeks, after which a full-time manager will be appointed. Next year the festival becomes an annual event and details of the headline events will be announced on May 21st.
Éigse breaks in new directions
A melding of sean-nós dance and traditional Indian Kathak dance is one of two world premieres in dance that will figure at this year's Éigse Carlow Arts Festival. The strong dance programming is not surprising, given it is artistic director (and former International Dance Festival Ireland manager) Marina Rafter's first festival.
The programme, announced this week with parties in Carlow and Dublin, continues its strong visual arts strand (this year curated by Francis McKee) but continues to strike out in other artistic directions, including new collaborations and commissions, and seeking to make its mark with international and Irish work. One commission is of Indian Kathak dancer Sonia Sabri and Connemara-based sean-nós dancer Seosamh Ó Neachtain to create a new work.
A new site-specific work from Irish Modern Dance Theatre (IMDT), Frieze, promises to be part circus sideshow, part dance, part sculpture, and part art installation, while Rhythmic Space, a new work from IMDT choreographer John Scott, uses an opera singer, ballet and contemporary dancers, and a soundtrack in five languages.
In theatre, Guy Dartnell will premiere his Travels with My Virginity. The visual art strand will include Forms of Exchange, featuring pioneers in new media art, while Forms of Construction will look at more traditional themes in art - form, geometry, landscape and myth.
Other events will include Oogly Boogly, a celebrated work for toddlers; concerts by Damien Dempsey and piper Liam O'Flynn; Donal O'Kelly Productions' newly devised 1798 spy thriller, Vive La; and South Korean percussionists Dulsori on opening night. Éigse runs from June 8th to the 17th. See www.eigsecarlow.ie. \
Northern lights
A three-year initiative designed to discover new women playwrights from the North has been launched in Belfast by Ransom Productions, writes Sara Keating.
Described by Ransom's artistic director Rachel O'Riordan as a "long process, not a quick fix", the project seeks to develop the work of female writers in the North. O'Riordan, whose latest production This Piece of Earth opened to critical acclaim at Belfast's Old Museum Arts Centre \earlier this week, says that in the five years \working in Belfast she has never directed a play by a woman.
Although two female playwrights from the North - Lisa McGee and Rosemary Jenkinson - won Stewart Parker Awards last year, O'Riordan believes \"the profile of the female playwright in Northern Ireland needs to be brought up to the profile of the male playwright".
Funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, the Write on the Edge project will host a series of workshops, led by internationally renowned writing mentors\Nina Steiger\director of the Writers Centre at London's Soho Theatre\.\Coleraine. The project will culminate in 2010 with the production of a new play by a Northern female writer\initiative. \information, e-mail writeontheedge@hotmail.co.uk.
Everyman's NY awards link
The Everyman in Cork must be pretty pleased this week, after two plays that had their world premieres in Cork received two nominations for the Drama Desk Awards in New York.
Both Anna Manahan (for Sisters by Declan Hassett) and Ed Harris (for Wrecks by Neil LaBute) have been nominated for Outstanding Solo Performance in the 53nd annual awards.
Sisters, which opened in Cork in February 2005, opened in New York in 2006 after an extensive Irish tour and dates in Edinburgh, London, Colorado and New Orleans.
Wrecks transferred directly from the Everyman Palace Theatre to New York's Public Theater for a six-week sold-out run.
The Drama Desk Awards considered theatrical events that opened on Broadway, off Broadway and off-off Broadway during the 2006-2007 season in the same competitive categories.
Another Cork connection saw Cork-born, Crawford College-trained and now New York-based set designer Bob Crowley nominated for his design of Mary Poppins and The Coast of Utopia, starring Billy Crudup. The awards are to be presented on May 20th.