Galway arts fest a feast for culture vultures

Birdmen will roam Galway’s streets during the festival

The Galway International Arts Festival kicked off yesterday (Monday), and its packed schedule of music, theatre, literature and visual arts runs until Sunday, July 29. The exciting Irish and international programme will see 600 artists take part in 200 events across 32 venues in what organisers say is the biggest and most ambitious Galway International Arts Festival (GIAF)  to date.
The Heineken Big Top, located at the city’s Fisheries Field, will feature world-class and legendary musicians, including American band The Flaming Lips, Canadian outfit Caribou and world-music superstars, Amadou & Mariam, who play the first concert in the Big Top tomorrow night. The line-up also features Gavin James, Madness, The Stunning, Kodaline, Walking on Cars, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra and DJ Jenny Greene, as well as world-renowned musicians Ustad Wajahat Khan and Peadar Ó Riada, leading performers of Indian classical music and Irish traditional music, who will perform in the stunning surrounds of St. Nicholas’s Church on Tuesday night.
Taking to the stage in the Róisín Dubh, Monroes and Electric are The Ollam, And So I Watch you From Afar, Paddy Hanna, Tracy Bruen, Sharon Shannon & Band, The Lost Brothers and many more.
The host of free, outdoor, and family-friendly options for children and adults of all ages includes sensational circus and acrobatic shows Backbone and Humans, and the ‘a-maze-ing’ inflatable walk-in sculpture, Luminarium, which will make its home on Eyre Square from July 20 to 28.
The free ‘Street and Spectacle’ programme will see Olivier Grosstete’s The People Build return for two live builds. Last year, it won the hearts audiences in 2017 when a large-scale reconstruction of the Aula Maxima building was erected from cardboard on Eyre Square. This year, with the help of hundreds of volunteers, thousands of cardboard boxes will be transformed into works of art; one floating on the River Corrib at Waterside and the other in Eyre Square.
The Museum of the Moon, a spectacular giant moon featuring detailed NASA imagery of the lunar surface will appear at Lynch’s Castle on Sunday, July 15, and it will then move to the new Human Biology Building in NUI Galway.
Throughout the two weeks, magical and hypnotic ‘Birdmen’ will see huge illuminated, mysterious creatures roam the streets of Galway. Think massive, moving skeletal pterodactyls, and you’ll get the idea.
GIAF’s theatre programme includes six world and five Irish premieres. In what promises to be one of the must-see shows of the Festival, Galway International Arts Festival and Jen Coppinger present the world premiere of Paul Muldoon’s Incantata, which runs every day until July 27. Funny and poignant, it tells the beautiful story of a man remembering a wonderful relationship, the love that was shared and the grief that comes after loss.
Galway-based productions include Druid’s ‘Furniture’ and ‘Shelter’, Decadent’s ‘Port Authority’, Galway Youth and Community Theatre’s ‘Wit’ and ‘Baoite’, and an Abbey Theatre commission presented by An Taibhdhearc and The Abbey.
Theatre audiences can also look forward to ‘The Fall’, a powerful docu-drama from South Africa that wowed audiences in London, Edinburgh and New York, and a new immersive theatre installation from Enda Walsh, ‘Office 33A’.
The First Thought Talks series, which this year focuses on the theme of ‘home’, will be launched by President Michael D Higgins, who will share his thoughts on the subject.
The festival gallery is open at the Connacht Tribune’s former print works on Market Street. The space has been transformed for a major Festival Commission by Turner-prize nominated artist, David Mach, while the extensive visual arts programme features a total of nine exhibitions.

To view the full programme see www.giaf.ie or call 091 566 577. In-person bookings can be made at the box office in the Galway Tourist Office on Forster Street. The festival runs from this Monday, July 16, to Sunday, July 29.