MONDAY
Low
Empire Music Hall, Belfast 8pm £22.50 thebelfastempire.com Also Mon, Dublin; Thurs, Kilkenny
It is apt, of course, that Low a band which has issued one of contemporary music's best collection of Christmas songs (the mini-album Christmas, released in 1999, initially as a gift to their loyal fanbase) should be undertaking a brief Irish tour this month. So stay glued to the icy spot as Duluth's finest (yes, really, Bob Dylan) slowcore-strum their way through the likes of Little Drummer Boy, Silent Night and other winter wonderland tunes. Special guest on all dates is US experimental violin player and songwriter Gaelynn Lea, who is also not to be missed.
We art hurtling into the future – Joanna Kidney
Galway Arts Centre, 47 Dominick St, Galway Until January 14 galwayartscentre.ie
Joanna Kidney sets out to convey "the experience of being human with a living body on this earth, moving through the measure of time". Her show consists of encaustic paintings and a site-specific, monumental drawing in space. Plus a collaborative performance video, Skimming Stones, made with Liadain Herriott, which explores the connections between drawing and dance. A publication launch, with texts by Maeve Mulrennan and Finnbar Howell, will conclude the exhibition run.
TUESDAY
If the Ground Should Open . . .
Video and sound installation by Jaki Irvine (Until Jan 15) Irish Museum of Modern Art, The Royal Hospital, Kilmainham, Dublin 7pm €8 imma.ie
Sound and music play a central role in Jaki Irvine's ambitious installation "If the Ground Should Open . . ." The work, a 1916 centenary commission, draws on Irvine's fictionalised account of the role in the Easter Rising of two women, Elizabeth O'Farrell and Julia Grenan, marginalised in the historical record. A one-off live performance of the specially composed soundtrack features nine musicians.
WEDNESDAY
Mongoose presents Winter Longing II
Whelans, Dublin 7pm €17/€15 whelanslive.com
It's a good notion for the month that's in it. Hosted by smart, contemporary all-female folk group Mongoose, this is the second annual winter-themed evening of music (including Mongoose and Basciville) and a range of spoken-word people (including Stephen James Smyth, John Flynn and Erin Fornoff).
Dervish
Magistorium, South Anne Street, Dublin 7pm €55 (with dinner)/€25 magistorium.com
Cathy Jordan and her band have traversed the globe with a sound that's all their own. Rich arrangements of familiar and newer tunes cosy up alongside refreshing interpretations of contemporary songs by the likes of Suzanne Vega. Their horizons are wide, their tastes eclectic and their musicianship always supreme.
THURSDAY
Pop-Up – The Paul Kane Gallery @ the IAA
Irish Architectural Archive, 45 Merrion Sq, Dublin Dec 12-16 iarc.ie
The Paul Kane Gallery, formerly on Merrion Square, is much missed among art lovers. Occasional pop-ups, not that far away, in the Irish Architectural Archive, provide some consolation and a chance to see what regular exhibitors are currently doing. They include Veronica Bolay, Aidan Crotty, Megan Eustace, Ita Freeney, Marc Reilly, Wesley Triggs, Hazel Walker and more. Catch the Archive's outstanding House and Home: 40 original architectural drawings, plus publications, models and photographs for mid-18th century to late-20th century residential projects in Ireland (Until March 31) while you're there.
The Heiress
Gate Theatre, Dublin Ends Jan 7th 7.30pm (Sat mat 2.30pm) Mon & Mats €27, Tues-Thurs €34, Fri-Sat €37.50 gate-theatre.ie
Where there's a will there's a way in Henry James's 1880 novel Washington Square, adapted for the stage in 1947 by Ruth and Augustus Goetz. But when Catherine Sloper, a gauche and inhibited young woman, constantly undermined by her sardonic father, finds an impassioned suitor, is it the bolt of true love she has dreamed about, or, as her father suspects, the sign of a schemer after her inheritance?
This vision of 19th-century New York could have been treated as a reassuring costume drama, but director David Grindley focuses on the play’s truer identity, as a courtroom drama with motivations under cross examination and hearts in the dock. Denis Conway’s magnetic Dr Sloper calls witnesses, produces evidence and builds a case, while an engagingly timorous Karen McCartney summons the gumption to rebut him or decide what’s real. The Gate’s production has an attractively cool awareness of the stiff artifice in this world, too, nudging at characters and postures to see if they wobble. It makes for something refreshingly absorbing. Is this a case of one woman’s self-realisation or society’s fatalism? The verdict is yours.
