It is that time of year already: school is out, life guards are on duty, the city is filled with dusty D-reg jeeps collecting Irish College escapees, and the Galway International Arts Festival begins in earnest next week when the whole town seems enchanted.
Running for almost two weeks, from Monday, July 15, to Sunday, July 28, the festival will include its biggest music line-up to date, seven world premieres, a specially commissioned visual arts installation, new theatre, a vibrant First Thought Talks programme and more of the astonishing summertime street spectacle beloved by the children of Galway for four decades.
Officially opening the festival next Monday will be the world premiere of Mark O’Rowe’s new play Reunion which dissects the deep currents of family life with biting humour and insight. A major new ensemble play, it stars a roll-call of Irish actors: Ian-Lloyd Anderson, Cathy Belton, Venetia Bowe, Stephen Brennan, Leonard Buckley, Simone Collins, Desmond Eastwood, Valene Kane, Robert Sheehan and Catherine Walker.
Drama
Other premieres include Unspeakable Conversations by Christian O’Reilly, starring Olivier Award-winning disabled actor Liz Carr and fellow disabled actor Mat Fraser conducting a provocative life and death conservation; The Map of Argentina by Marina Carr, a new play that tunnels deeply into the complicated contours of family dynamics, pushing the boundaries of love, power and desire directed by Andrew Flynn; and a new immersive theatre installation Dining Room, part of an ongoing extraordinary series Rooms created by Enda Walsh and GIAF’s artistic director Paul Fahy.
At the Festival Gallery, Australian sculptor Patricia Piccinini returns with We Travel Together, and another site-specific installation created especially for the Festival.
Music
Kicking off the music at the Heineken Big Top next week will be Passenger on Monday, 15 July, followed two days later by Stewart Copeland of The Police with Police Deranged for Orchestra, conducted by Galway’s Eimear Noone, followed by Kneecap, Leftfield, Block Rockin’ Beats and Annie Mac. The following week sees Jess Glynne, Kettema, Gavin James and The Saw Doctors rock the Big Top.
The free Street Art Programme will bring the city alive on Friday, July 19 and Saturday, July 20 when Planet Vapeur’s giant winged-horse Pegasus will stalk the city. Each day during the Festival, Guru Duru will sashay the ever-popular Silent Disco Walking Tours through town, and the spectacular Les P’Tits Bras’ new aerial show West Wind will bring Eyre Square alive with jaw-dropping aerial acrobatics (July, 19 and 20 ).
Other Festival highlights include Druid’s production of Endgame, Samuel Beckett’s comic-tragic masterpiece, directed by Tony Award-winning Garry Hynes; the sensational Australian circus and acrobatic performers Circa’s European premiere of Duck Pond, a reimagining of Swan Lake; and from Lebanon, Tania El Khoury’s Cultural Exchange Rate, a unique immersive installation which examines the never-ending story of migration.
Visual Arts
The Festival Garden returns to Eyre Square with food, drinks, and occasional DJs. Other visual arts exhibitions include works by Bernadette Kiely, Miriam de Búrca, Brian Bourke, Karen Cox, Brian Ballard, Yvonne McGuinness, Cecilia Danell and Katerina Gribkoff, Seán O’Riordan, Peter Bradley and a site-specific group show featuring seven female artists When We Cease to Understand the World in the incredible setting of Interface, in Connemara’s Inagh Valley.
The First Thought Talks series is the Festival’s platform for interrogating the world, exploring the issues and challenges of the day. Guests will include journalists Marion McKeone and Fintan O’Toole; novelists Colm Tóibín, Andrew O’Hagan, Mike McCormack and Elaine Feeney; academics author Diarmaid Ferriter and Pankaj Mishra; philosopher Susan Neiman; actor and activist Liz Carr; tech expert Elaine Burke; climate change adviser Marie Donnelly; barrister Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh; playwright Marina Carr and psychiatrist Brendan Kelly, amongst a host of others.
See www.giaf.ie for full line-up
