Entertainment
Powerful examination of inhumanity and loss
Arts Week with Judy Murphy
With beautiful, seductive images that tell a horrific story, Exhibit B from South Africa’s Third World Bunfight Theatre Company has been a sensation all over the world.
Part installation and part performance, with live singing from Namibian group the Exhibit Quartet, Exhibit B explores European colonialism in Africa and the impact this has had on modern society.
Exhibit B comes to Galway next week when it will be staged in the Black Box theatre from July 14-19 as part of the Galway International Arts Festival.
Through a series of 13 live tableaux, audiences will be asked to face, straight-on, what people are capable of doing to each other.
The tableaux or installations are based on the ‘human zoos’ that prevailed in Europe and America during the 19th and early 20th centuries. They confront the colonial atrocities committed in Africa by Europeans who believed they were a superior race, and they also examine the plight of migrants today.
South African writer and theatre director Brett Bailey had two main aims when he set about devising Exhibit B, he explains.
“I grew up with a system of apartheid that indoctrinated a society into believing in a system of racial supremacy. How does that happen? How, through images, is a system like that given legitimacy?”
Secondly, this white South African man wanted to explore the history of colonialism “and the atrocities it carved out”.
Recent attempts by historians to portray colonialism in a positive light are dangerous, he says.
“Colonialism is not a good thing. Any sharing of culture has a lot of advantages but the colonial process wasn’t about bringing education of healthcare. It was about land-grabs and power.”
Research is an important aspect of Brett’s work in preparing for a show, and for Exhibit B, he has drawn on oral as well as written history and powerful images from the era of slavery.
The resulting tableaux are presented as pieces of art, and include references to Dutch masters and still lives. But the images they portray are unrelenting. These include people in cages and in chains, as well as a depiction of a Kenyan man who was castrated during the Mau Mau uprisings of the 1950s. There’s also an installation of South African Saartjie Baartman, otherwise known as ‘The Hottentot Venus’. She was exhibited as part of 19th century freak shows while alive, and as a scientific exhibit after her death.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Folk duo Niall Teague and Pádraic Joyce are launching their new album What Will We Be, a blend of folk, Americana and acoustic music, this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in An Taibhdhearc.
The success of their well-received 2020 release Taobh le Taobh, as well as recent successes at the Pan Celtic and Oireachtas Song Contests, spurred the duo on to record this new album which represents many years of collaboration and musical development.
It features Niall and Pádraic on vocals, harmonies, and acoustic guitars, Maidhc Ó hÉanaigh on double bass and Neil Fitzgibbon on fiddle. The catchy title track, What Will We Be, features contributions from percussionist Jim Higgins (The Stunning, Christy Moore, Paul Brady) and haunting, driving melodies on vocals, guitar, and fiddle.
Themes of love and hope are woven through Come Away with Me which features interplay between piano and fiddle as well as rich vocal harmonies.
People, places, and broken dreams are celebrated and lamented on Martin and Tom, Guitar Gold, Memories of You and Achill Island. The influence of David Henry Thoreau’s novel Walden features on the tracks Simple and Wise and Walden, with the beauty of nature, escape and simple pleasures at their core.
The album moves from minimalistic folk ballads such as Galway Ghost to swirling, string-laden arrangements on the song Neptune, both of which are influenced by maritime tales from Galway. Much of the work on this album was supported by the Arts Council, including work with musical arranger Eoin Corcoran and the string ensemble Treo.
The album will be launched this Friday, May 19, at 8pm in an Taibhdhearc. Tickets €22, plus booking fee at Eventbrite.ie.
Dunmore is the place to be this weekend for lovers of traditional music, as the Galway County Fleadh will take place there from this Friday, May 19, to Sunday, May 23.
It is 10 years since Dunmore last hosted a fleadh and the local Comhaltas branch, which has re-formed since Covid, is looking forward to facilitating this gathering of music, song, dance and craic.
The official Opening Concert will take place in Dunmore Town Hall this Friday at 8pm with the acclaimed Mulcahy family from Limerick. Mick, Louise and Michelle are well known throughout the country, thanks to their live performances, television appearances and numerous CDs. They were the winners of the TG4 Gradam Ceoil Grúpa Ceoil Award for 2023. Tickets for their concert can be purchased on the door and a great night of music is promised.
Two days of competitions will kick off this Saturday at the town’s Community School, with more than 1,500 competitors taking part. Participants will be hoping to qualify for the Connacht Fleadh 2023, which will be held in Ballina, County Mayo, from June 23 to July 2.
Competitions for those aged Under 10, Under 12 and Under 15 will be held in a large variety of instruments on Saturday, as well as in singing and Comhrá Gaeilge. Sunday’s competitions will be for the Under 18 and Over 18 ages groups, as well as in dancing.
On both days a large entry is expected for Grúpaí Cheoil and Céilí Band competitions across all age groups.
Seventeen Comhaltas branches from across Galway will have participants in this weekend’s competitions, which will result in a large number of visitors to the Dunmore area.
Members of the public are welcome to attend the competitions, which offer a great opportunity to hear and see the talent on display. There will be sessions in local pubs over the weekend as well and everybody is welcome to attend these.
For more information on the County Fleadh, go to www.galwaycomhaltas.ie.
Music for Galway’s concert with renowned Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia which had been due to take place on April 27 but which had to be deferred, will now take place next Tuesday, May 23, at 8pm, in the Emily Anderson Concert Hall at the University of Galway.
This concert of German classics with Bach at its core, will brings the Bach element of Music for Galway’s 41st season to an end.
This world-class pianist who won the famous Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition, has a repertoire that spans many eras from baroque to contemporary and he is widely known for his elaborate programmes. Cédric Pescia describes music as ‘language and movement at the same time’.
Audiences will have a chance to experience his soft, clear touch as he performs a programme for solo piano that will include classics such as Schumann’s popular Waldszenen (Forest Scenes), a suite of nine short pieces, and the penultimate of Beethoven’s piano sonatas, No. 31. These pieces will be interspersed with French Suites by Bach.
■ Ticket for Cédric Pescia’s concert are available at www.musicforgalway.ie, or by phone 091 705962 and on the door on the night. They cost €20/€18. The price for fulltime students of all ages is €6 while MfG Friends can avail of the friends’ rate of €16.
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