Irish creativity on display for Baboró’s anniversary

By Judy Murphy

Irish artists are to the fore at this year’s Baboró International Arts Festival for Children, which runs until Sunday, October 17, in venues across Galway and online. The festival, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, has worked with four artists-in-residence and initiated seven commissions of new Irish work. Some of these works celebrate Baboró’s founding aim, which was ensuring the rights of all young people to participate in cultural events, explains the organisation’s current artistic director Aislinn Ó hEocha.

She praises the vision of people like Jean Parkinson and Patricia Forde who played a key role in Baboró’s establishment and steered it in its early years  after it grew out of the Galway Arts Festival in the mid-1990s.

Our City Walls, a mural from street artist Emmaline Blake, inspired by local children, explores the importance of that right to participate in arts. Located at the city’s Quay Lane, it features a girl looking into a book, which has “creative ideas tumbling out of it”. The mural will remain in place for at least six months, says Aislinn.

James Riordan from Moycullen was 11 years old when the first Baboró took place in 1996 and it’s been a huge influence in his life.  James went on to train in physical performance and set up the ground-breaking Brú Theatre Company here in Galway in 2018. Brú’s commission for Baboró 2021, The Libravian, will use physical comedy to celebrate books by Irish authors and explore themes of courage and identity, via Lynn. This transvestite librarian was born into a circus family but always wanted to be an author.

As Lynn pursues her love of books, she takes the audience on a journey that mixes fun and moments of poignancy, according to Aislinn. The Libravian will be at venues including Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop and Moycullen Bookshop from October 11-15.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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