The shipbuilding industry that was once the pride of Waterford will be joyfully recreated during the Spraoi festival next weekend, with an imitation steamship the star of the show, writes Catherine Foley.
'HEY, MIKE!" roars a navvy at the back of the makeshift shipyard. "Yeah," shouts a disembodied voice from underneath the hull of a ship. With the hammering of steel, the rest of their conversation is drowned out. Men in Darth Vader-type masks use welding torches that flare and roar. The intense flames create a fierce heat as sparks fly and metal melds together.
A great hulking steamship that recalls the glory days of Waterford's shipbuilding industry in the 19th century is currently being created in a warehouse on the outskirts of the city. It's a case of all hands on deck (pardon the pun) as the opening of the three-day city festival, Spraoi, draws ever closer.
The Iron Tide, as the festival's central parade is called, will proceed down the quayside from Reginald's Tower to Rice Bridge and be centre-stage at the city's annual street festival. Hearts at Spraoi are swelling with pride at the idea, because it is the street theatre company's own creative team that is producing the parade spectacle, a first in the festival's 15-year history.
From the Spraoi warehouse, a ship called The Neptune will emerge. It is planned that, as the sun sets over Rice Bridge, furnaces will be stoked, engines will roar and smoke, and the steamship's 12m mast will tower over the viewers that line the route as it moves regally down the quay. Cranes will lower bales and crates into the hold, crew members will shovel and haul in the engine room; sailors will heave ropes and a giant paddle will revolve slowly as if propelling the vessel through the water, although the 20-tonne vessel will, in fact, be drawn by a truck. (This is merely a pageant, so The Neptune will not be seaworthy.)
Out front, dolphins, waves, seagulls and flying fish will create a carpet of movement and dance. Along the route, five dockside platforms towering over the water will form companion pieces, adding more funnels to the skyline as well as percussion, lights and additional performers weaving in and out of the spectacle.
"Yes, it's a piece of performance art, but it's also a real-life engineering project on a scale that's rarely seen in Irish street theatre," says Mike Leahy, Spraoi's joint artistic director.
The parade attracts up to 70,000 spectators each year, despite clashing with hurling replays involving Waterford for the past two years.
"People wanted to get home in time for the parade," says TV Honan, the festival's director. "We were really chuffed that people would care about the parade. Spraoi and hurling are totally interlinked . . . These are natural bedfellows." So far, this year's hurling team are not scheduled to play on Sunday, August 3rd.
"We did not set out to make something big for the sake of it," says Dermot Quinn, along with Leahy the company's joint artistic director. "But we wanted to offer our audience something fresh. Working with a bigger canvas seemed to be an interesting option. It was a way of concentrating the performance energy, a means of offering the audience a more intense experience."
MIRIAM DUNNE, the festival's programme director, is fine-tuning details in readiness for the visiting foreign acts to the festival. In between handling the logistics of performance locations and city-wide pedestrianised streets, she lists off a selection of national and international street-theatre companies, which are programmed to perform, including Sienta La Cabeza from Spain, Oplas Teatro from Italy, Close Act from the Netherlands, the Flying Buttresses from the UK, Tobrogoi from France and the Irish Sikh Council.
Other highlights include a new production called The Station from the UK-based Bash Street Theatre and an international display called Hydromania will aim to animate the city's Court House, using lights, water, music and physical performance. But TV Honan knows that it is the parade which will create the greatest degree of excitement.
"The festival, in particular, is very much of the place. It wears Waterford on its sleeve. My feeling is - from taxi drivers and truck drivers - that people feel it has something to do with them.
"We always wanted Waterford-produced material side by side with international material. We knew that by producing our own work, it would have a Waterford feel," he adds. "We have never done a parade that was very much rooted in Waterford. This is quite new for us."
Recalling the aftermath of the first festival in 1993, he says, the team quickly "realised we were on to something. It released a huge amount of positive creative energy in the city." This year, Honan believes Spraoi has broken new artistic ground.
"In a sense we are revisiting a tradition that has long since gone from the city," agrees Quinn, briefly breaking away from the heavy metal scene in the background to explain the thinking behind this year's parade. Although Waterford is often associated with Viking ships and tall ships, they found that its steamship industry had been forgotten.
The steamships were mostly built throughout the 1800s by the Malcolmsons, a landowning Quaker family from Portlaw. At one time, there were five shipyards operating along the quays and Waterford was a world leader in terms of ingenuity, advanced production and technical developments. One of their ships, the Neptune, caused such a stir when it arrived in Russia, that Tsar Nicolas I turned out to greet her and he was so impressed, he exempted the steamer from further port-dues! This year's parade will "be a tribute to the whole steamship era . . . The vast majority of Waterford people don't realise that it was such a big thing," says Quinn. "There's no rehearsal. We are never quite sure how things will work. The real challenge is making it light enough and strong enough," he says.
"We were always keen that there would be a Waterford element in it," says Honan, who is proud of the fact that there is "probably the guts of 400 people directly involved in staging the festival this year".
However, figures show a rise from 18 per cent to 28 per cent in the overall audience that came from outside the city and county in the past two years.
"We see our street theatre more in common with indoor theatre," says Honan. "There would be more of a narrative to it than carnival."
As they prepare The Neptune for her maiden voyage, it seems unfair that the mighty vessel should be left without her keel. But, if there's magic there on the day, she could well sail on regardless.
SPRAOI: OTHER EVENTS
Special features at this year's Spraoi Festival will include a line-up of theatrical shows at Garter Lane Arts Centre, aimed at young children from five years upwards. This pre-festival event, called sprÓg, will run from this Monday, July 28th, to Friday, August 1st, with workshops and activities each day to complement the shows.
Spraoi Drums, a group of 25 young people who have been rehearsing for the past month under the guidance of percussionist John Barron, will be prominent at various times over the festival weekend to inject rhythm and energy into the proceedings.
Lots of local talent will be on display throughout the festival, including the Waterford Folk Club, some of the city's top DJs, a percussion sextet and a hip-hop/breakdancing team.
At John Roberts Square, there will be a selection of world and contemporary music on offer, such as the first appearance in Ireland of singer Jason Isaacs and the Dave Connelly Big Band, who will be joined by the city's Barrack Street Concert Band, which is now in its 138th year. There's the Latin Dub Sound System, live music from groups such as The Appeal, Nassau, Deaf Animal Orchestra and Llya K (fresh from an appearance at Glastonbury) and the chance to travel along the Guinness Rhythm Route, which is dotted with some 38 pubs where groups such as Tír na nÓg, Fat 45, Paprika Balkanicus, Gorbachov and the Red Stripe Band can be heard.
After the parade, Pyrofantasia, a leading UK firework companies, will burst on to the scene. The Box, a new street theatre show by Spraoi, will have its Waterford premiere. Waterford Youth Arts has produced a special promenade show that is to be presented in collaboration with Croydon Youth Theatre (UK).