Your guide to the arts, music and more in County Wicklow Spirit of dance at two-day festival
WICKLOW ScreenDance Laboratory returns to Bray on Saturday and Sunday, December 2 and 3, at Mermaid Arts Centre and Bray Bowl.
The event is a two-day festival of dance and dance-on-film.
Now in its third year, the event happens in both Mermaid Arts Centre and Perfect Theatre Studios at Bray Bowl.
Curated by Dr Adrienne Brown, invited guests for 2019 include revered dance practitioners Róisín Whelan, Angie Smalis, Aoife Kavanagh and County Wicklow based Karen Gleeson.
Wicklow ScreenDance Laboratory 2019 has as its theme: ‘Through the Dark of the Night’. The winter solstice occurs on November 26, the darkest and longest night of the cyclical year and a time where for two or three nights we have no visible moon.
The festival programme includes events both free and ticketed’ including a screening of ‘Le Ballet de la Nuit’. The specially commissioned dance film ‘Le Ballet de la Nuit’ (comprising 12 international filmmakers, 12 composers and 12 hour-long films on themes of the iconic 1653 ballet) will be shown, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day.
In partnership with Klinkerdin Experimental Arts Salon, the event will also host an Artists Salon that will include an evening of dance performance, dance film screening and discussion with special guests on December 2. Featured film/dance artists Aoife Kavanagh (Ireland), Róisín Whelan (Ireland) and Angie Smalis (Greece/Ireland) will present and discuss dance and film, along with a live dance performance from Steffi Carter. Films by Anna Maria Hutri (Finland), Erika Vaughn Byrne (USA) and Emma Minarelli (Italy) will also be screened.
International screenings are front and centre once again at this year’s festival with a curated selection of dance films from across the world for screening on December 3. Video dance performance/screendance is a particularly eclectic 21st century medium that draws artists from multiple disciplines to form moving images that speak of the poetic and political in current times.
Viewers will see films from Karen Gleeson (Ireland); Salvatore Insana (Italy); Steve Woods (Ireland); Erica Borges (Brazil/Ireland); Tara Brandel (Ireland); Angie Smalis (Greece/Ireland); Jessica Peoples (Ireland); Molly McAllister (Ireland); Aoife Kavanagh (Ireland); FuLE (France); Anna Maria Hutri (Finland); Valentina Knezevic (Croatia/Germany); and Hadi Moussally (Lebanon/France).
For the programme and to book tickets, go to mermaidartscentre.ie.