Arts Council awards to help Alex and Cecilia develop new work

Two Galway-based artists, Alex Allison and Cecilia Danell, have received awards from the Arts Council, worth €15,000 each.

They are among 24 young people, working across performing arts and literature, who received a Next Generation award from the government agency.  This programme was set up to promote artists and give them time to develop their work.

The 24 recipients were selected from thousands of applicants and, with €15,000 each, will work across a range of areas – music, literature, circus, theatre and architecture.

Next Spring, they will take part in a week-long residential programme at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, County Monaghan.

Alex Allison is a circus artist and co-founder of the Maleta Company. His work is inspired by dance, theatre and circus and he has a special interest in ‘magic realism’. He has performed and taught across Europe, as well as touring with the group Clowns without Borders in Iraq and Rwanda.

Maleta Company’s first show, Boa Noite, which premiered in Druid Theatre last May, went on to tour to the Mirabilia Festival in Italy, Cork’s Midsummer Festival and Fres Manez in the Czech Republic. Alex is now working on a new work, I Put a Spell on You.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.