Dublin is not Amsterdam. Unlike that city of equivalent size, it does not possess a multitude of venues for the performance of contemporary music. In fact there is not one venue which is specially kitted out for the purpose.
The Celtic Tiger, it seems, has not much time for culture - the returns, perhaps, are not high enough, the risks too great. One cannot imagine property developers bribing corporation officials to realise their long-held desires to set up centres for the avant garde.
Amsterdam was not always the town it is today. It took the persistence of many individuals to set up these centres, and there are many signs of hope here, particularly within the last few years. Only recently, the National Concert Hall, for the first time in its history, hosted a successful mini-festival of contemporary music. It invited seven Irish composers to programme their own concerts.
Long before it was either popular or profitable, however, the Project Arts Centre provided a home for experiments in the arts. Not only has contemporary music benefited, but theatre, the visual arts and dance have all flourished under its patronage. It operated an "open doors" policy to all misfits, essentially.
Although my memories of productions at the Project stem back to my teenage years, it is only since 1998 that I have had the pleasure of working there with the contemporary music group, The Crash Ensemble. After our premiere at the Samuel Beckett Theatre in Trinity College, Project's then artistic director, Fiach MacConghail, approached us, offering very generous "get-in" times and rates to come and play at the Project. We felt "wanted" - so exciting!
The Mint, the Project's temporary home off Henry Street, where we put on concerts for the next year-and-a-half, has a special place in my heart. My favourite memory is of our performance of John Cage's 4'33", a silent piece in three movements. The atmosphere in the hall was electric, even if no electricity was being used on stage. One fellow was desperately trying to control a fit of giggles at what he believed to be the absurdity of it all, another was rather put out by the giggler, occasionally sirens wailed from outside - the mainly young audience wailed in delight at the end. Even though 4'33" was the oldest piece that Crash had performed by that stage (written in the 1950s), there was something about the atmosphere at the Mint which made you feel that you were doing it for the first time.
Now that the Project Theatre is moving back to East Essex Street, I can't wait to get in the door again. A year is too long without it. After our initial flirtation, and then courtship at the Mint the Crash has finally taken the plunge and is going to live with the Project for a while. In official-speak, that means we will be ensemble-in-residence, but really it means that we will benefit from the wonderful mothering of Kathy McArdle and her team for a year. We can run loose with our barmy ideas. More prosaically, we now have a definite place where we can rehearse, rather than making use of the hospitality of Trinity's music school when lectures were not running, and renting rooms left, right and centre when the lecture schedule was more involved.
If you are going to be institutionalised, it's best to pick an institution that's a little off-the-wall itself. In the midst of the grey conformity of the Celtic Tiger's interests, all I can say is thank God for the Project.
The Crash Ensemble will become Ensemble-in-Residence at Project in August.
