The Dublin Community Blog

I’m happy to post this guest article written by my friend, Melanie. Melanie has many years of experience in the arts and particularly in acting and she offers unique insight into the Dublin theatre scene.

Tom Creed, originally from Cork, has been living and working as a freelance theatre director in Dublin since 2006. Well known in the theatre community as a young and prodigious talent, his work is at once prolific and varied. Beginning his theatre work in Cork, he then trained with Rough Magic’s SEEDS programme, which seeks to identify and develop young theatrical talent. He got what he calls the ‘golden ticket’; he was made an Associate Director of the company, which allows him to work under their well established banner as well as pursuing some of his own work.

His latest departure is Una Santa Oscura, a theatrical staging of the music of Ian Wilson, inspired by the life of 12th century Christian visionary Hildegard of Bingen. Presented at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin’s Temple Bar, Tom is adamant that there’ll be no nuns on stage! Rather it’s an interpretation of a cloistered day interrupted by ecstatic visions, brought to life in a contemporary apartment setting and performed by a single musician, violinist Ioana Pectu-Colan. Although he wouldn’t call himself religious, Tom is intrigued by the collision of the sacred and profane and found himself fascinated by the life of this extraordinary proto-feminist, fundamentalist Christian nun who was famed in her own lifetime as a composer of hymns, expositor of theology and receiver of visions. Read the rest of this entry »

Big thanks to Declan for letting us know about a gig happening in The Button Factory this Friday night to benefit relief efforts in Haiti. Attention Bebe and Mob Fandango headline the show and The Button Factory have offered their venue for free so that all proceeds can go to Partners in Health in their efforts to bring relief and humanitarian aid to the people of Haiti. CLICK HERE to see the Facebook event page. Tickets are €10 at the door.

Being snowed in can have it’s advantages. After doing the laundry and cleaning the living room, I will no try to summarise the year 2009 on the Dublin Community Blog.

Gloomy January showed us that the recession is in full swing, as Dublin indie institution Road Records was forced to close its doors (which thankfully re-opened later due to massive support from many a successfull Irish musician) and Dublin Bus announced massive cutbacks, laying off 200 staff. Add some snow causing massive disruptions to traffic and you had a very bleak start into the new year.

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This morning, as I was getting some work done, my attention was drawn to the MySpace page of a collaborative music project assembled by Mark Garry called Sending Letters to the Sea. As I let the music play in the background, I found it very relaxing and yet interesting enough that it actually began to distract me. It doesn’t seem to have any pretenses of being an ambitious hot new act in Dublin. Instead, one gets the sense that this is a collective of artists who merely wanted to get together to express their creativity, and in the process had a lot of fun and (maybe accidentally?) created something rather special. Be sure to have a listen for yourself and tell us what you think.

Letters to the Sea will be releasing their first album and performing on the 19th of this month at St. Columba’s Church in Swords, where much of the album was recorded. After having a listen to the tracks on their MySpace page, I have a feeling that there will be no better place to experience this music than inside the walls of an old stone church.

It seems the cold weather came quite suddenly earlier in the week. So why not embrace the chill in the air and celebrate winter with a little ice skating? You wouldn’t know it from the online promotional buzz (or complete lack thereof), but an ice rink is now open in Sandyford’s Beacon South Quarter (PDF). Last year’s Dublin on Ice site has yet to be updated (as of this post anyway) and I can’t confirm that the rink is opened in Smithfield. (If YOU can, please let us know in the comments.)

The lack of information on the rink(s) is a bit odd, begging the question, why spend money and other resources on something like an ice rink without getting the word out? Where are the models in Santa outfits? (Maybe we’ll see the advertising ramp up a bit the closer we get to Christmas.)

For now, here’s last year’s promo video from City Channel.

I’m not sure we could add this to our ‘recession busters’ or ‘how to get by on €15’ categories, but it’s a good deal nonetheless. The ‘Dine in Dublin-Restaurant Week’ campaign will feature a number of restaurants offering three course dinner menus for promotional rates of €25 or €30 (a 20% discount.) The initiative will run from the 12th through the 18th of October and there are over 50 restaurants participating. It may indeed include some of your favourites, so be sure to have a look at the full list HERE.

And if you can’t wait until next weekend for a culinary adventure, be sure to check out Marlay Park this weekend, where the Festival of World Food will be taking place again. (CLICK HERE to see DublinBlog’s write-up on it last year.)

[I'm having a hard time confirming the Festival of World Food event this weekend, so if anybody can provide further information or a website that confirms it, that would be appreciated. It's supposed to be a Dun Laoghaire Rathdown council sponsored event, but their website is showing nothin'.]

Further ‘recession buster’ deals to be taken advantage of in Dundrum these days. The Counter are offering a free Signature Burger to the first 100 people to visit from 12noon tomorrow. That gives you seven options in the ‘Signature Burger’ category. The Counter is located below Hamley’s toy store in Dundrum Town Centre.

Also, Milano are offering two pizzas for just €12 (except on Saturdays) through 4 October. CLICK HERE to fill in a form and receive a voucher to print out and take with you to any one of seven restaurants in Dublin.

The free Mind the Gap Operetta will be running again next Friday night, as will a few other public art exhibitions in conjunction with Fringe Fest. And yes, there will also be plenty of buskers and stag do/hen party folks around next weekend. Can’t guarantee that we’ll see another group of Austin Powers look-a-likes running around (anybody else see Elvis suddenly appear in that video?), but in Temple Bar, you just never know.

The other day, my family and I took the opportunity to have lunch in Alfie’s on William St. South after noticing their “€10 Lunch Box” promotion on a sign just outside the door. We were greeted by friendly staff who accommodated us and made us feel a little more at ease with a toddler and a buggy. (Any parents living in Dublin will tell you that some city centre restaurants are more accommodating to families than others.)
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Early September marks the beginning of the Dublin Fringe Festival for fans of all things “artsy.” Fringe Fest tackles artistic expression in both traditional forms (theatre, comedy, music, painting, etc.) and non-traditional (give aforementioned categories a creative twist and then add some improvisation and/or quirkiness of one sort or another.) The festival returns this Saturday and runs through Sunday, 20 Sept.

This year, Absolute vodka are sponsoring the festival and tomorrow evening is the launch of Absolut Original, from 6-8pm in the Smock Alley Theatre, Temple Bar. Sixteen Irish artists have been given the same brief that the legendary Andy Warhol was given in 1985: “Be inspired by the Absolut bottle.” The Absolut Original exhibition will be curated by The Small Print for the duration of the festival. After the festival, each piece will be submitted for inclusion into the international Absolut Art collection in Stockholm.

Here’s a video of one artist’s preparations for the exhibition (Irish street artist, Asbestos):