Rumours of the present Arts Council's death have been greatly exaggerated. Despite the front page headline in a Sunday newspaper declaring that Minister Sile de Valera was to "axe" Arts Council members (a terrible image, indeed) we may even have a new Government before we have a new Arts Council.
Although the Minister may produce a green paper to amend the Arts Act and reform the Arts Council in May, this will be followed by an extensive consultation and submissions process. The Arts Council's head of public affairs, Nessa O'Mahoney, says that the production of a bill would be "unlikely before the end of the year". We are therefore very unlikely to have a new Arts Act until some time next year.
The Minister says that she is considering a smaller Arts Council, and the new chairman, Patrick Murphy, was quoted on this page last week as having a strong preference for such a change. The Minister can't "axe" individual members, and she will probably disband the whole Council and reappoint a new one when the new Arts Act becomes law.
The present Council is likely to sit, then, for most of the span of the present Arts Plan. The members' task is not lightened by comments from the Minister and the chairman, that their number may be halved. They may air their views on this matter at the first Council meeting chaired by Murphy, which takes place on Monday in Lifford, Co Donegal.
Monday's Examiner stated that 41 per cent of those surveyed at the Fianna Fail Ard Fheis would be happy for the party to go into coalition with Sinn Fein in the absence of IRA decommissioning. They'd have to sort out their differences on the arts front first - Dublin South Central's Sinn Fein representative, Aenghus O Snodaigh called last week for the new chairman of the Arts Council, Patrick Murphy, freshly appointed by the Minister, Sile de Valera, to resign. Responding to the interview with Murphy carried on this page, he said: "As well as promoting this elitist approach to art, he (Murphy) has the gall to say that `not everyone can create art'. Everyone has the capacity to produce art and good or bad it's still art and is it not said, `beauty is in the eye of the beholder'?"
Coisceim, David Bolger's innovative dance troupe, has entered a sponsorship partnership with ESB to wake young people up to dance. The Let's Dance project will run over three years, and will involve workshops and residencies, aimed first at un-freezing those young bodies and then at pouring them into dance. Bolger's next show, When Once is Never Enough is about compulsive behaviour and opens at the Samuel Beckett Theatre on March 28th. It then tours to Garter Lane, Waterford (April 6th), the Backstage Theatre, Longford (April 8th), the Belltable, Limerick (April 11th) and An Grianan, Letterkenny (April 14th).
If you were among the lucky few who went to a show called If the dead could go shopping what would they buy? at last year's Dublin Fringe Festival, and ended up wandering around a Temple Bar shop with a headset on, spying on a couple of shoppers in a sports cafe, listening to an argument taking place in a private apartment and driving round and round a multi-storey car-park at speed, then you'll be interested to know that European Players are about to give the people of Newcastle the same treatment.
The Grainger Town area of the city is so like Temple Bar that the show fits perfectly, and should present punters with the same metaphysical critique of the mystery of modern living (that's shopping to you).
European Players is run by Cinzia Hardy, who's based in Northumberland but comes from Dublin. She happened on English/Irish co-productions as a way of being in both places at once. The company's biggest project at the moment, however, is a South African/Irish collaboration which uses Brian Friel's Translations as a starting point to explore cultural loss and change in both countries.
The Capetown show, Changing Faces, Facing Change finished at the weekend. Set in the grounds of the District Six museum (which benefited from Irish funds due to Kader Asmal's association with Ireland), it was devised with young people whose families lived in the area until it was ruthlessly "cleared" and they were moved to townships. The devising process was directed by Belfast-based documentary film-maker, Brian Henry Martin; education officer with the Derry Playhouse, Sinead McSheffrey; a member of Capetown's Iindiza company, Caroline Calburn; a Capetown-based comedian, Stacey Stacks; and the Johannesburg-based dancer, Nelisiwe Xaba. The whole process will be repeated in Donegal in April next year with Irish young people.
The ground-breaking residency of the Vogler String Quartet in Sligo has been developing apace. Details of the first ESB Vogler Spring Festival, taking place from April 28th to May 1st were announced yesterday. The festival is based in St Columba's Church, Drumcliffe, where W.B. Yeats is buried. A new work has been commissioned from Donnacha Dennehy. His Counting for string quartet and audio tape will be premiered on Sunday, April 30th, and will also be the subject of a pre-concert workshop. Visiting artists for the inaugural festival are pianist Hugh Tinney and clarinettist Ib Hausmann, and the repertoire covered, including solos, duos, trios, quartets, quintets and a sextet, ranges from Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, to Reger, Berg, Prokofiev, John Cage and Ib Hausmann.
Information from: 079-64202
Ireland.com, the portal site of The Irish Times, has launched a weekly news and listings service for classical music, "Michael Dervan's Classical Music". Posted every Tuesday, it is the most comprehensive listing of classical events in Ireland. At www.ireland.com/dublin/ . . . RTE producer and director, John P. Kelly, is running a weekend course on "Characterisation and Text" in Tralee starting on St Patrick's Day - phone the Drama League of Ireland on 01-8090478 . . . Tonic, a fund-raising event for the Sculptors' Society of Ireland is an evening of performance art, video and sound installation. Tomorrow at the Cobalt Cafe at 16 North Great Georges Street at 8.30 p.m. till late - your £5 ticket entitles you to two drinks . . .
