Artscape: Australia giveth to Irish theatre - and it taketh away, writes Belinda McKeon. Two months ago, Dublin Theatre Festival director Fergus Linehan announced his acceptance of the post of artistic director and chief executive officer of the Sydney Arts Festival; now the Melbourne-born director of the Dublin Fringe Festival, Vallejo Gantner, has decided this year's Fringe will be his last.
Gantner has been in the job for three years, and is leaving, he says, because the nature of the Fringe demands "constant revolutions, constant changes in identity".
He says he is proud of the advances the Fringe has made since 2000, the extent to which its international profile has grown, and of the developmental role it has played in the upsurge of dance in this country. To stay on, he feels, would be to risk stamping too much of his own identity on the festival. Gantner has been sorting through the hundreds of applications for the September festival and he will stick around to arrange a second programme of THREAD, the intensive fortnight of workshops and collaborations involving artists and mentors, at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Co Monaghan.
Gantner has no aspirations, for the moment at least, to head another festival - he wants to unleash his directorial talents on his own ideas. "I want to pursue other ambitions, about directing, and making work. As exciting as it is to be seeing and travelling and being involved in so much of this, and involved in the development of the work, I feel the need to get involved in detail, to get back into the rehearsal room." He plans to develop "very physical work, a sort of dance hybrid".
Festival changes
There must be something in the cultural air, writes Shane Hegarty. St Patrick's Festival will be saying goodbye to not only its chief executive, Maria Moynihan, but its artistic director, Dominic Campbell. Both joined the company in 2000 and, according to Moynihan, have known since Christmas that 2004 would be their last festival. During their tenure, the festival has grown both in size and ambition, while the company has become a leading public event organiser. While Campbell is not rushing into anything just yet, Moynihan will be taking on a business development role within the software company that she and her fiancé have founded, while also freelancing in event management and fundraising. "For me, it's partly informed by how this festival is the biggest event of its kind in the country," says Moynihan, "and even when I began I had the sense that I could never top this and that I would eventually have to do something completely different." She does have one big event left to organise. "There's the small business of my getting hitched in September. That's the easiest event to organise. At least there'll be no road closures to contend with."
Shining in China
The Irish Festival of Arts and Culture in China has been a major success so far, despite the last-minute pull-out by the Chieftains due to Paddy Moloney being ill, writes Clifford Coonan. "A week and a half ago I got a fax saying the Chieftains were sick. It's thanks to the goodwill of the Riverdance people and Altan that we were able to stage the opening. It's a major relief to get it all up and running," says Donal Shiels, the festival manager, who is coping remarkably well with the stress of running around the Chinese capital keeping things in line.
The opening was a big hit. The Chinese love Riverdance and have done since President McAleese's visit here last year, but watching the normally very staid Beijing audience singing and clapping along during Altan's set was a revelation. "That was the Chinese people singing and dancing, not the expatriates. I was surprised, normally the Chinese audience like to wait till the end. It was fantastic," says Shiels. The Minister for Arts, John O'Donoghue, opened the festival, which is the centrepiece in a cultural exchange programme between Ireland and China. It will run in China in May and June and in Ireland in the summer and autumn.
Cork's theatre triumphs
It's a case of Cork wins all over for the National Theatre Shell Connections Festival opening at the Everyman Palace next Tuesday, writes Mary Leland. Not only has the Cork School of Music production of Boat Memory by Laline Paull been selected as the play to be featured at the Olivier Theatre in London during the British National Theatre's youth drama project in July, but Cork playwright Enda Walsh has been selected as one of the playwrights to feature in the same festival next year. Walsh will officiate at the launch of the Cork event on Tuesday, inaugurating five nights of theatre with 10 plays including seven world premier presentations with newly commissioned work from Patrick Marber, Philip Ridley, Laline Paull and Letizia Russo. All the plays are for or about teenagers and will be performed by leading youth theatres from all over Ireland as part of this Everyman Palace and National Theatre of Great Britain initiative.
The C.S.M. Youth Theatre production of Boat Memory is directed by Regina Crowley and Trina Scott. The festival programme includes master classes and workshops managed by Everyman Studio directors Tom Creed, Thomas Conway and Oonagh Kearney. As the new Irish partner for the NT-Shell Connections Festival, Everyman has created a lineup that includes the Independent Theatre Workshop of Dublin, Newbridge Integrated College of Banbridge in Co Down, Youth Lyric from Belfast, Kildare Youth Theatre and Waterford Youth Drama. Bookings on tel: 021-4501673; information from tel: 021-4503077 or e-mail: palacepress2@eircom.net
Sea captains' convention
It might sound more like a duel than a convention, but when the dancing modernists and traditionalists meet at the second Three Sea Captains Convention at Tí Ghearóid in Oranmore, Co Galway, tomorrow at 1.30 p.m. the goal is history and debate rather than absolutist positions, writes Michael Seaver. "Not that there won't be strong feelings," says organiser Risteárd Mac Aodha, who claims neutrality in the pursuit of debate and diversity. The Three Sea Captains is one of our oldest dances and was composed in honour of the victorious allied "admirals" who liberated Greece from the Ottoman Empire in the sea battle of Navarina in 1827. "The dance has changed a lot in the past 50 years," says Mac Aodha, "mainly because of the competitive pressures of feis dancing. There are those who feel that these innovations are not traditional and that contemporary techniques and style changes are not even "Irish" in substance." Dancing master Joe O'Donovan will give a history of the dance and then the floor is open to dancers to perform their various versions. Contact Risteárd Mac Aodha at tel: 087-2729290 or e-mail damhsóir@eircom.net.
Galway Early Music
"Centres and peripheries" is the very apt theme of this year's Galway Early Music Festival from May 20th to 23rd, which focuses on the cultural centres of this new, enlarged, Europe and the many peripheral cultures of the 12th to 17th century, writes Lorna Siggins.
Among the international ensembles performing at the festival will be representation form the Czech Republic, Latvia, Switzerland, France, Spain, The Netherlands, Ireland and further afield. Highlights will include a music of the Irish harpers concert, performed by Kathleen Loughnane and Alec Finn at St Nicholas's Collegiate Church on May 20th, and a candlelit concert performed by White Raven, entitled "Songs for Kings and Commoners", on May 21st.
Kathleen Loughnane is a co-founder, along with Dearbhaill Standún and Mary Bergin, of the group, Dordan, and their mix of traditional Irish and baroque music has received widespread acclaim. They secured the National Entertainment Award for traditional music in 1993. White Raven comprises Irish soprano Kathleen Dineen, American tenor David Munderloh and Latvian baritone Raitis Grigalis, and their performances range from traditional songs in the sean-nós style, medieval long songs from Spain and the British Isles, Irish and Scottish folk songs and ballads, to parlour songs of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Also performing will be Verboden Vrucht (Forbidden Fruit) on May 21st at St Nicholas's, while the Compagnie Maître Guillaume will stage a concert at the same venue on May 22nd.
Annaghmakerrig fund
The Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Co Monaghan, has had a series of fund-raising events by artists for artists over the last two years. Chief among these has been the €32,250 raised for the special access bursary fund, by previous visitors to Annaghmakerrig getting together and holding a Big House in My House night. Up and down the country, people held parties, dinners, quizzes, impromptu readings and sessions in their houses, with guests contributing to the Annaghmakerrig fund. A special, additional fund-raiser for the centre will take place on Saturday, May 22nd, at the United Arts Club in Dublin. Writer Claire Keegan, winner of the Rooney Prize, the William Trevor Prize and the Francis McManus Award, will be holding a one-day fiction workshop from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The cost for the day is €100. Call 047-54003 or 047-56994 for bookings.