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GALWAYARTS KICK OFF

By Ryan Kennedy

NOW into its 30th year, the Galway Arts Festival has kicked off it’s first week with acts to surpass its already sterling reputation.
Over 400 writers, artists, performers and musicians will descend on Galway over the next fortnight from as far as Australia, Cuba, Ukraine and Japan, but with the festival never forgetting the best of what Ireland has to offer.
Favourites in previous years, Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company return after nearly a decade’s worth of crowd-pleasing at the festival, and seem to have brought half of America’s performance elite with them.
The cream of New York’s crop will be showcasing their wares, as theatre company The Team will be treading the boards with their now staple brand of exuberant theatricality, while fellow New York dance troop, acclaimed Stephen Petronio Dance Company will combine visual art, fashion and music, in which two pieces were created in collaboration with Rufus Wainwright. Austin company the Rude Mechanicals will be presenting comedy Get Your War On.
From the other side of the world, physical theatre meets circus in Australian company Circa’s show The Space Between, a re-examining of the body’s limits, set against a score by Jacques Brel.
Not forgetting the Irish additions to the line-up, renowned playwright Pat McCabe will be premiering his new play The Revenant – directed by Joe O’Byrne with music by Gavin Friday
Shows from Galway including Love and Other Disguises, a marital collaboration between Catastrophe and Chrysalis Dance; contemporary dance and film art in The Projector of Dreams from Pillow Fight Productions; and a drag queen celebration in An Audience with the Divine Peaches, from the Flying Pigs.
The festival’s music line up is as diverse as ever, featuring rock, folk, blues, jazz and classical, not forgetting traditional and contemporary Irish music from the likes of Donal Lunny & Moving Hearts and The Divine Comedy.
There’s world music from Cesaria Evora, with sensual vocals from Cape Verde making her Irish debut with her ten-piece band, and the wild Balkan gypsy music of Romania’s Taraf de Haidouks.
World-renowned cellist Steven Isserlis and The Brodksy Quartet head up an interesting classical programme. New York composer Mikel Rouse bridges the gap between high art and popular culture in Music for Minorities; and you can also catch Laura Veirs, Alabama 3 and Tom Baxter among many others.
Visual arts includes a major exhibition of new work from Irish artist Sean Lynch; Women War Photographers, featuring the work of five leading international photographers; Single Shot, a showing of specially commissioned film and video pieces from a number of UK-based international artists.
The Galway Arts Festival has been running from this Monday 16, and will continue through Thursday 29th July.

www.galwayartsfestival.com

DROGHEDA ARTS FESTIVAL 2007 PROGRAMME

By Andrea Clarke

THE programme for the third Drogheda Arts Festival has been announced.
The festival, which runs from Wednesday May 2 to Monday May 7, brings the worlds of theatre, art, music, literature, comedy, family entertainment and outdoor fun to Drogheda for the bank holiday weekend.
Drogheda Mayor Michael O’Dowd hopes this year’s festival will have “economic” advantages.
He said: “This is a major annual event for Drogheda and it will be of major artistic, cultural, and economic benefit for Drogheda this year”.
Programmed and produced by Drogheda Borough Council Arts Office the festival includes an exciting mix of events from performances by renowned Irish Ballerina Monica Loughman to a major exhibition at Highlanes Gallery of work by Irish Fulbright scholar artists.
Arts Officer Rosemary Collier said: “This arts festival brings important national and international performers to Drogheda and supports the creation of new work in theatre, dance and visual arts while at the same time maintaining a strong civic and street element to its programme”.
The highlight of this year’s Drogheda Arts Festival will be the mini-festival dedicated to celebrating the music of world-renowned Californian composer Terry Riley who is one of the founding fathers of minimalism in music.
Terry Riley: Spirals of Ragtime and Raga features the first Irish appearance by Terry Riley himself as a performer.
He will join Ireland’s Crash Ensemble in one of his most celebrated works, In C, which is recognised as the first great masterpiece of minimalism. He will also play improvisations on the piano.
Presented in association with the Louth Contemporary Music Society, the programme will also feature the Irish premiere of Chanting the Light of Foresight, with the renowned Arte Quartett from Switzerland. This celebration includes workshops and an ‘in conversation’ evening.
This event has received support from the Arts Council, RTE Supporting the Arts, The Ticket, RTE Lyric FM, the dHotel and the arts offices of Drogheda and Louth County Council.
The Drogheda Arts festival is also delighted to welcome Gyan Riley. This rising figure of guitar and contemporary music will play one very special concert in the Martello Tower Millmount as part Terry Riley: Spirals of Ragtime and Raga.
Other musical events include the legendary fiddle player Frankie Gavin & Hibernian Rhapsody, the foremost Gypsy guitarist in the world Angelo Debarre (The Angelo Debarre Quartet), The Choice World Music Prize Winner – Irish Album of the Year in 2006 Julie Feeney and Brazilian jazz act Sirrus B(UK).
The Chalets will also take part in the festival returning to Ireland for the first time in over a year to perform at McHugh’s on May 6.
Other musical talent will be showcased in the outdoor events.
The very popular Fair on Fair Street returns with fine food, crafts and free street entertainment. Live on the Festival Gig-Rig as part of the Fair on Fair Street, The Camembert Quartet, Bray Vista and Drogheda’s own Cachimbo will be in full force on Saturday 5th May for an afternoon of family fun.
Interchanges – Fulbright at 50 anniversary exhibition will be displayed in the wonderful new Highlanes art gallery.
Double Vision, an exhibition resulting from a collaboration between French photographer Klavdij Sluban and young offenders from St. Patrick's Institution will also be on display during the festival.
Another exhibition Resonance links works by visual artists in which music / sound is of integral importance to its meaning and interpretation.
Theatre enthusiasts can enjoy the hugely successful Danny and Chantelle and Cups and Crowns Educational Theatre Company who will present ‘Granddad says … you shouldn’t wish your life away’ at the Droichead Arts Centre.
TEN42 productions will present a production directed by Patrick Sutton Iscariot / Magdalen at the Little Duke Theatre.
Two leading Drogheda theatre companies Calipo Theatre and Picture Company and Upstate Theatre Project will present The Shape of Things to Come, a showing of their works in progress.
This will be a unique chance to see new works in progress from these leading theatre companies before they tour them later this year.
A very special evening of dance bringing together two very different dance forms will take place on May 4 in the Droichead Arts Centre.
The evening will begin with a performance of original pieces from the exciting contemporary dance company Junk ensemble, performed by Jessica Kennedy and Megan Kennedy. Renowned ballerina Monica Loughman will also take to the stage to perform excerpts from Swan Lake, Giselle and some of her own original choreography with her Russian dance partner Robert Gabdullian (Perm State Ballet of Russian).
Another highlight of this year’s festival will be at Millmount the Duthain Dealbh (artists Daniel Doyle, Niall Magee and Alan Magee) will create two massive sand sculptures in the Courtyard at Millmount over a five day period. They have travelled all over the world creating these incredible works of arts.
Literature and comedy also feature in the 2007 programme.
Literary readings can be enjoyed from Michael Harding (Priest, The Trouble with Sarah Gullion), Ciaran Carson (The Twelfth of Never, Shamrock Tea) and Anne Haverty (One Day as a Tiger, The Far Side of a Kiss).
Comedian PJ Gallagher of Naked Camera fame will perform at the Droichead Arts Centre on Sunday May 6.
The Drogheda Arts Festival is organised and funded by Drogheda Borough Council, The Arts Council, The Louth County Development Board, Louth County Council and is supported by local businesses and patrons.

For a free festival brochure call (00 353) 041-9876100
Tickets for all events are on sale now (00 353) 041-9876100
www.drogheda.ie/artsfest

SELFRIDGES TAKES A SURREAL TURN THIS SPRING

By Andrea Clarke

SELFRIDGES is exploring the influence of Surrealism on contemporary art and design with a series of collaborations in its Oxford Street store.
From last week to June 24, running in tandem with the Victoria and Albert museum’s exhibition, Surreal Things: Surrealism and Design ( March 29 to July 22), Selfridges’ commissions will demonstrate the powerful effect the movement continues to have on artists and designers today.
Selfridges has always been much more than just a shop, operating at many levels of experience, from extraordinary window displays to perception-challenging in-store activities.
Surrealism at Selfridges will encompass all of this to offer visitors the most captivating shopping experience ever staged in a department store.
At the height of the surrealist movement in the 1930’s, artists such as Salvador Dali and Elsa Schiaparelli would create window displays for forward-thinking shops. Selfridges will celebrate this tradition by inviting current Surrealism-friendly designers to create unique and thought-provoking schemes.
Commissioned designers include John Galliano, Viktor & Rolf, Maison Martin Margiela, and Moschino.
Each of them has been given free reign to create a surrealist world within one window, reflecting the essence of their creativity and the influence of Surrealism on their work.
Swiss minimalist designer Rolf Sachs, and Dadadandy – the Paris-based team inspired by Surrealism and Dadaism - will each create a window and other projects inside the store.
Dadadandy will give Selfridges’ Surrealism season one of its most startling art pieces - The Sum of All Reasons by Simon Moretti for Dadadandy, a gigantic eyeball dangling over the store’s iconic Lady of Time above the historic main entrance.
Rolf Sachs has created a range of surrealist products which will be sold exclusively by Selfridges in its surreal bespoke shop-in-shop.
Hot young architectural practice Fashion Architecture Taste (F.A.T.) has been enlisted to design and curate a surreal shop on the lower ground floor of the Oxford Street Store.
This guerilla shop will display and sell an amazing and wide-ranging array of items, all reflecting the ongoing influence of the surreal aesthetic on contemporary art and design.
Products range from the Dali inspired mirror-nails produced by O.P.I Nail Bar for Selfridges, to the oversized stationery by wacky design brand XL, to extraordinary exclusive and dreamy book sculptures by Su Blackwell, to wonderfully sinful and unbelievable confections by ChoccyWoccyDoodah – the most creative chocolatier and patissier this side of the moon.
The shop will also sell exclusive surreal-like lighting pieces through Greenwich Village, Selfridges’ contemporary designer furniture space.
The company is delighted to be the exclusive retail partner of the V&A shop as a large selection of the V&A surreal products will also be sold through the Selfridges Surreal Shop.
Next to the Surreal Shop, on the lower ground floor of the Oxford Street store, Sienna Café will also get the surreal treatment, courtesy of culinary threesome extraordinaire Les Trois Garçons.
After its re-invention by this highly creative team, Sienna Café looks, feels and tastes different – selling Surrealism inspired cakes and nibbles.
As a part of the store’s exploration of contemporary Surrealism, Selfridges has commissioned a surrealist art installation to occupy the Ultralounge, the Oxford Street store’s events space.
Created by Dadadandy, The Fountain of Innocence is an installation suggesting a challenging modern take on a series of original surrealist concepts.
Dadadandy created a Fantasy palace inspired set designs from movies such as Cocteau’s Surrealist La Belle et La Bete and Orphee to Stanley Kubric’s iconic 2001.
The palace contains illusionary devices such as semitransparent mirrors, distorted rooms, smoke machines, changing dramatic lighting as well as Dadadandy inspired artworks which will include vignettes based on the International Surrealists Exposition in Paris in 1938.
Dadadandy also provided customers with an original sign off: The Birth of Liquid Desires, a poetry filled till receipt which people will be able to keep, read, share long after the surreal moment is over.

WHAT IS SURREALISM?
Surrealism, n. Pure psychic automatism, by which one proposes to express, either verbally, in writing, or by another manner, the real functioning of thought. Dictation of thought in the absence of all control exercised by reason, outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupation

SURREALISM AT SELFRIDGES
March 16 – April 29: Surrealism window display
From March 23 for six weeks: ‘This is not a shop’ in collaboration with F.A.T. opens (lower ground floor)
March 23 – June 24: Dadadandy surrealist installation (Ultralounge, lower ground floor)
March 29 - July 22: V&A’s Surreal Things
www.selfridges.com

Penguin Launches Student Design Award

By Andrea Clarke

UK publishers Penguin have launched a new design award to encourage final year designers on a Degree or HND Art or Design course to produce a real book jacket.
Penguin has evolved from being the first mass-market paperback publisher in Britain to one of the most recognisable brands ever. Its logo and the famous classic Penguin cover, with its basic horizontal grid, are recognised and imitated the world over.
Under a long line of talented and creative designers, the design of Penguin books has matured and progressed, and is currently led by Jim Stoddart and John Hamilton, the two Penguin art directors who will be judging this award.
Joining them on the judging panel are author Ali Smith, Deyan Sudjic, Director of the Design Museum and Jamie Hewlett, creator of cartoon band, Gorillaz.
The panel will be chaired by Penguin Managing Director, Helen Fraser.
She said: "We are very excited to see what Penguin’s design heritage will inspire from the freshest and brightest young design students. I’m looking forward to seeing the result”.
The closing date for the award is April 20 and the winner of the award will be announced at the end of May. First prize is a six-week placement in Penguin’s design studio and £1000, the second prize is the chance to work on some assignments and £500, and third prize is Penguin 70's Gift Set, Penguin by Design by Phil Baines and a cash prize of £250.

THE BRIEF
Entrants will choose one of four books to design.
Blink by Malcolm Gladwell – popular science about the power of intuition
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy – powerful and tragic love story
Mr Clarinet by Nick Stone – haunting thriller set in Miami and Haiti
Vince and Joy by Lisa Jewell – a sophisticated comedy of relationships and family

For more details visit the website www.penguindesignaward.co.uk

Local ballet dancer returns to Northern Ireland

By Nikki Peel

PORTADOWN ballet dancer Leigh Anderson returned to Belfast recently after spending nine years in the Royal Ballet School in London after he achieved a scholarship at the age of eleven.
Leigh, now an award-winning dancer, has finally arrived home to show off his newly learned skills.
He is performing his first professional job as a clumsy cobbler and Mexican Ambassador in the Scottish Ballet Company’s production of Cinderella, which has brought him to Belfast.
Even though they are two relatively small roles, Leigh insists he learns a lot from them.
He said: "It's a very strange feeling, I almost feel bad accepting money for doing the job I love."
It has been a huge struggle for Leigh and his family back in Portadown but now, all of that has changed and the talented dancer can finally allow his mother Jennifer to sit back, relax and enjoy the show.
The family really can live happily ever after.

The Scottish Ballet production of Cinderella at the Grand Opera House in Belfast runs until February 10.
www.goh.co.uk

Artists brush up on business skills

By Michael McGlade
A NEW programme to improve the business skills of Irish artists, from both North and South, launches this month.
The CREATE programme, a £130,000 cross border scheme, will explore Painting and Fine Art, Digital Art, Graphic Design, Photography and Craft sectors with a view to looking at options for selling art work and developing employment opportunities.
Lydia Gamble, programme co-ordinator said:
“Many artists have developed their craft but often find it difficult selling their work or obtaining finance.
“Building contacts and selling your work is a skill in itself. This programme aims to help by addressing practical issues such as putting together a portfolio or submitting a funding application in a professional way”.
The first element of the programme will be an overview of the creative industries and core business skills followed by specific training in visual arts with experienced tutors and guest speakers delivering relevant training.
There will be two residential workshops as well as trips away to do best practice visits. The final element of the programme will be one to one mentoring from a business advisor with experience within the creative industries who will help participants to put together a development plan.
Aileen Fogarty of Cavan County Enterprise Board added: “Networking is incredibly important in this field and this programme will give participants the chance to meet representatives from the arts councils – both north and south - as well as experienced artists”.
The programme will also explore how changes in technology and the digital revolution are affecting all realms of visual art as well as new opportunities such as government commissions for public artworks.
“Technology has increased the range of what artists can offer and it’s important to gain an understanding of this and to find out if it can help you showcase your work”, said programme manager Eamon Foster from Glenwood Business Centre.
The programme is free, participants don’t need specific experience and employment status is not a relevant factor.
The CREATE programme is a partnership between Castlereagh Enterprises Ltd, Glenwood Business Centre in Poleglass working with Louth and Cavan County Enterprise Boards. The programme is funded through the Cross-Border Consortium under the EU Peace II Programme and part-financed by the UK and Irish Governments.
For more information on the programme, contact Castlereagh Enterprises Ltd on 02890557557.