Cork 2005:Cork City Ballet and its artistic director Alan Foley have been awarded a €20,000 grant from the Cork 2005 organisation, allowing the company to add a couple of nights to its winter season at the Opera House.
Running from November 7th to 10th, this offers what Foley calls "the usual eclectic mix", in this case built around Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker suite and a series of divertissements. That description, however, downplays productions which usually attain very high performance standards. Foley's small resident corps is enhanced by reliable professionals and the addition of several guest artists, in this case led by Marie Lindqvist, prima ballerina of the Royal Swedish Ballet.
Once Foley invites his leading lady, she is allowed choose her performance partner, and Lindqvist asked Dragos Mihalcea, principal dancer with the Dutch National Ballet, to support her in this programme. Chika Temma and Victor Povavarov of Ballet Russe in Swansea will also feature, along with Russian-trained Irish ballerina Monica Loughman, and Foley himself.
Krzysztof Pastor, chief choreographer with the Dutch National Ballet, will present his new work In Light and Shadow in a programme which also includes pieces by Judith Sibley (Bend Down Low) and company ballet mistress Patricia Crosbie (Sisters, set to the music of Paddy Casey).
The inclusion of strong contemporary work is one of Foley's trademarks; presenting two seasons a year - Ballet Spectacular goes on national tour in March - he also runs a private ballet school and is director of the performing arts diploma in dance at third-level Scoil Stiofáin Naofa in Cork. He has a strong affinity for modern dance and welcomes the influence of innovative visiting companies. "I employ ballet-trained dancers in contemporary work, people who are not just 'having a moment' and calling it dance - that kind of thing negates the ethos of dance itself which is a matter of a trained body doing very skilful things."
Cork City Ballet was established in 1992 and has now grown to the point where a €75,000 grant from the Arts Council for this year is accompanied by an acknowledgement that it needs - and will get - administrative support. "I'm a dancer", he says, "not a business manager, and my priority is the dancers. We're not just putting on a show. I work with Monica on a regular basis and we perform together at different engagements through the year, but running a company takes a different kind of skill, and that's what the Arts Council, I hope, seem likely to provide."
Foley, who trained initially with Joan Denise Moriarty in Cork before working with various European companies, knows that the day is coming when he will hang up his leotards for the last time. He has professional friends all over the world - the costumes for this production were made for him by the Kirov ballet company - and will remain involved in dance when he's no longer performing. "I love it, but I'm not obsessed with it. There is a life outside it; it's only dancing, at the end of the day."
Two Introduction to Dance sessions by Cork City Ballet will be held for schools at the Opera House on Wed Nov 9 and Thurs Nov 10; information from 021-4270022
Treasures of the northside
Walking in Cork's northside can offer many surprises: a Royal Irish Constabulary entablature; a sheet-metal sculpture of bull and drover; a chancel blazing with gilding and mosaic in a convent chapel; new gates in old sandstone walls; long gardens flowing down to the riverside - all these and more are captured in A City of Surprises: Hidden Treasures of Cork's Northside. A survey of the architectural and decorative features distinguishing the city and its suburbs north of the Lee, the book has been compiled by James FitzPatrick and sponsored by Blackpool Developments. Although born and living in the area, FitzPatrick admits that it was only when he went walking with his camera that he discovered how little he had seen before. And still it would have been impossible to include everything he found, although he has provided a comprehensive gazetteer of linked neighbourhoods. There is no particular emphasis; the shock of the new is more or less the shock of the old, but FitzPatrick's eye has found instances of modern styles cohabiting easily with forgotten graciousness. An elegant doorway on Summerhill, limestone carvings and terracotta panels on a former sorting office, a beautiful house on the Commons Road, a bronze Jack Lynch at the Blackpool Shopping Centre, which itself is one of the modern developments bringing so much change to Cork. A foreword by Clayton Love of Blackpool Developments acknowledges these changes, which make it so important "not only to protect this heritage, but to promote it as well".
Resource centre's quest for resources
These are anxious times for Máire Bradshaw of Tigh Fili, the artists' resource centre and gallery in Cork, who is submitting her application for funding to the Arts Council this week. The application will concentrate on the annual Eurochild Festival, but the venue is also the hub of a long list of events including training sessions, network meetings, painting and photographic exhibitions (including Harry Moore's current architectural series), book-launches, computer and other services, adding to a schedule of "First Friday" book readings and other literary events.
Although refused Council funding for the past two years on the mistaken grounds of overlapping with Triskel Arts Centre and the Munster Literature Centre, Tigh Fili got a one-off grant of €69,000 from Cork 2005 for Eurochild; next year this international festival will depend on the Arts Council and Bradshaw's own determined search for sponsors.
Also searching for sponsors is Opera 2005, which has had to postpone its production of The Barber of Seville until next year due to lack of money; a fundraising concert at the Opera House on November 3rd will feature Michael Colvin, due to sing Count Almaviva for the company's rescheduled presentation in 2006.
