“It’s like being on a roller coaster,” says David Francis Moore. “I’m holding on to the bar – and I’m waiting for the moment when I can just let go!”
It’s his first year as director of Dublin Fringe Festival – and he only started in May, which is pretty tight timing for September’s festival. “Fringe is a beast,” he says. “It’s a massive festival.”
A fifth of the programme – some international work, preselected shows and commissions – was already in place, but the other 65 works or so are selected from the fringe’s open call. With a healthy 230-plus applications from all over Ireland, Moore and four of his colleagues got together to choose the final line-up; theirs is a curated festival, unlike others, such as Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
They choose on the basis of “whether the idea can be realised at this moment, or is further development needed to get the artist to a point where their application may stand up next year? We track progression of artists, from first contact with the seed of an idea, develop a relationship with them, seeing work in progress, readings.” Year-round offshoots such as Fringe Lab and an artists-at-work scheme support artists in their localities. “That’s how Fringe has always worked, especially for emerging, early-career artists. You want the work to be the best it can be, to make the festival that we make, and it ensures quality.”
A decade ago Moore applied twice to Fringe, and although there was interest, the shows were rejected. “So it’s really interesting being on the other side,” he says.
The Dublin native has done lots since then, most recently in Carlow, at Visual and Carlow Arts Festival, before taking over from Ruth McGowan as Fringe director. (Like many others, he had to decamp the unaffordable capital years ago.)
He says the curatorial process “reveals itself. It’s like a sculpture. You’re trying to find the true lines, and why it connects, but also the more logistical parts.” The 2023 true lines are universal themes, often relating directly to the city, responding to contemporary social issues, or exploring the body and how we navigate the world. This year “a strand of solid music has emerged, and also circus performance and aerial work”.
“People need opportunities to gather, have experiences collectively, that ask questions of us and imagine new futures.” Those experiences could involve headbanging to loud music, as at this year’s show Mosh, or gathering in a taxi, as for Blue Thunder, or engaging with the struggles of an 18th-century family, as in Drainage Scheme.
The programme threads help audiences navigate: In Stiches (comedy); Plays; Rhapsodies (loosely, music); Big Nights Out (club and cabaret); Bodyscapes (dance and circus); Young Radicals (for children and younger people); Limitless (interdisciplinary and experimental); and Some Place New (which includes audio, immersive and installations).
For Moore, “growing up in Dublin, being part of Dublin Youth Theatre, studying theatre in college, Fringe has always been a very strong reference point for experimental, progressive work, vanguard work”. Now he’s “on the other side, in the programme room and leading the organisation”, and understanding the importance of Fringe to artists and creative companies. “It’s the first footing a lot of artists have in their professional work. It’s the entry point particularly into performing arts, in establishing a reputation for yourself and getting your work out there to audiences. It’s so special. It’s such a vital organisation, but it’s exciting at the same time.”
