Preview of 2016 Belfast International Arts Festival (11-29 October) #belfest

After its bruising breakup with Queen’s University and an unnerving though successful first year under its new structure and governance, the Belfast International Arts Festival is back, confident and less distracted with its 2016 programme.

The Ulster Bank Belfast International Arts Festival – to give it its full name – runs from 11-29 October. Festival director Richard Wakely explained at the launch that the aim is to bring the international work to Belfast, and to showcase local work and artists that is of international standard, for example, Prime Cut’s award-winning Scorch (recently back from the Edinburgh Fringe). Quite a number of events include an element of audience participation beyond passive watching. Several hundred free tickets for paid shows are being made available to community groups and members of the public as part of the Ulster Bank’s sponsorship, along with some totally free events throughout the festival programme.



The full programme is enormous with 103 events over 19 days in 30 different venues across the city. This post signposts rather a lot of highlights …

Three themes run through much of the 2016 programme:

Bending the Bard takes a sideways look at the enduring appeal of the Shakespeare on the 400th anniversary of his death. (If you need a quick refresher, Bruiser’s Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) is in the MAC until 22 September and is then touring Ireland.) Watch out for the free Micro-Shakespeare sessions hitting the City Hall grounds (Saturday 15) and Girdwood Community Hub (Sunday 16) which will allow children of eight and over to become a Shakespearean puppeteer. Watch out for Trolleys, a street ballet for five high octane supermarket trollies with their humorous and anarchic performance, that will be in the same locations.

Keeping Up With The Kapulets is a film by Sarah Maple that shifts an episode of the Kardashians into full period costume. Perhaps trashy reality TV isn’t so different from the Bard’s notions of entertainment? (Friday 14-Saturday 29)

Amanda Coogan’s multi-media Run to the Rock (Thursday 20–Saturday 22) combines sign language, performers from Northern Ireland and South Africa, digital sound and live image streaming to explore global themes of continuing relevance in Shakespeare’s texts, inspired by the Robben Island Bible (a copy of the Bard’s Complete Works that was smuggled into the South African prison).

Nineteen Sixteen looks back at the events on this island and across Europe. Dance show Butterflies and Bones: The Casement Project (Thursday 13) looks at belonging and becoming through the life of Roger Casement. The Fever: Roger Casement in the Dark Places (Wednesday 19) brings together performances of new dramatic work by Fintan O’Toole along with new music and the trial speech that was written by George Bernard Shaw for Roger Casement to deliver at his trial.

A century since limited women’s suffrage was introduced, 100 Years of Emancipation for Women – Where are we now? (Tuesday 18) asks how far women on the island of Ireland have come in relation to political empowerment (women are 27% of MLAs and 22% of TDs despite being 51% of the population), health and reproductive rights. Catriona Crowe and Fionnuala Walsh will be joined by Clare Bailey and Allison Morris.

Belfast Rising by Brassneck Theatre Company (Tuesday 25-Saturday 29) uses story, song and visuals to uncover the legacy of women and men connected with Belfast who would rally and strike in pursuit of independence.

World in Motion explores the human face of the migration crisis through film, theatre and word. The QFT are screening a short season of films: After Spring (following two refugee families in Zaatari refugee camp), The Music of Strangers, Flotel Europa (the director’s own story of fleeing 1990s Yugoslavia for Copenhagen), Walls (exploring the consequences of division globally through walls), #MyEscape (footage shot by refugees fleeing Afghanistan, Syria and Eritrea), Lampedusa in Winter (how refugees have become part of the island’s identity) as well as a selection of shorts from Mairéad McClean looking at Irish memory, migration and identity.

David Greig’s new version of Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Women is being performed by a huge local cast in the Grand Opera House on Friday 21 and Saturday 22 October. The original play has at its heart local people arguing for their lives. Those resonances jump into modern times as fifty women leave everything behind to board a boat in north Africa to flee across the Mediterranean. Who are we? Where do we belong? Who will take us in?

Author Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, author of Cast Away: Stories of Survival from Europe’s Refugee Crisis, will be in conversation with Peter Geoghegan (Wednesday 12 at 8pm), discussing her book’s insight into the EU’s chaotic and mismanaged response to the crisis.

The following evening (Thursday 13 at 7.30pm) Dr Rebecca Schaaf will deliver a lecture for the Royal Geographical Society that explores the complexities of the refugee crisis, placing it in a global context and considering the deeper causes and longer term implications.

Labour MP Yvette Cooper is delivering Amnesty International’s annual festival lecture on Thursday 20 at 7.30pm. Her remarks will look at fixing the refugee crisis and why the UK should do more to help those fleeing violence, conflict and persecution. Followed by Q&A.

Spectacles

The 2016 Festival opens on 11 October with a free evening of poetry, music, drama and imagery at 7.45pm in The MAC. In Dreams Begin Responsibilities promises to be a celebration of reconciliation on the island of Ireland over the last hundred years.

Two weeks later, the Festival closes with a series of concerts by the flamboyant artist and performer Taylor Mac. His concerts on Tuesday 25 and Wednesday 26 will feature his take on the music and culture from 1896 through to 1926 while the closing concert on Saturday 29 October promises to be “a ten decade spectacular” racing through from the Battle of the Somme and Easter Rising in 1916 to today in 2016. A live band, dazzling costumes and a lot to see, listen to and think about.

After last year’s AniMotion show which projected live-drawn images on the front of Belfast City Hall, Customer House Square Ormeau Park will be transformed into a magical neon oceanic seabed on Sunday 16 from 7pm for the Irish premiere of Mù with sea creatures swimming amongst the audience as well as over their heads in a fabulous fusion of light, sound and acrobatics. Free tickets must be booked.

Other theatre

Novelist and playwright Lucy Caldwell has reset Chekhov’s Three Sisters in 1900’s Russia to 1990’s Belfast as three sisters face up to the inertia they’ll need to overcome in order to conquer their dissatisfaction with life. (In Lyric from Saturday 15.)

Sarah Gordon’s first play A Sinkhole in Guatemala is being performed in Cultúrlann (Friday 21 and Saturday 22 October). A hole opens up, but where will it take you: a story about finding your way.

Kabosh Theatre’s new play Green & Blue (Friday 21 and Saturday 22) looks behind the uniforms of RUC and An Garda Síochána officers patrolling the border at the height of the conflict based on an oral archive of officers’ testimony.

Dance

The dance programme includes jumping, an immersive and participatory evening of community building (I’m genuinely scared of this one), and a double bill from artists in residence Oona Doherty and Leonie McDonagh.

Art

Enjoy a nice cup of Suki Tea at Belfast Open Studios as Visual Artists Ireland throw open their doors on Saturday 22 October to show visitors how artists get from an initial idea to the finished exhibition.

An exhibition of David Sherry’s work is being hosted at the Golden Thread Gallery from 6 October. He takes a playful approach in his drawing, painting, photography and video draws attention both to the ordinary events of everyday life and the intricate structures of the art world. On Sunday 15 at 1pm he’ll be giving a talk about his exhibition.