Locals are being asked to participate in the biggest ever celebration of Drogheda’s town wall. We are looking for volunteers to join us in bringing together over 2,000 people to join hands and form a ‘Human Wall’. The event will take place on Sunday the 21st of August at 11.30am and will last for just one hour. The event will be recorded by aerial footage and each participant will be given a free red T-Shirt and a certificate stating their involvement in the event.
The event will be covered by local and national newspapers, radio and television including RTE’s Nationwide.

Please contact Drogheda Art Centre for more information
email: iamwall@droichead.com
call:041 9875140
For info: Marcella Bannon – 0868278170

Mix Tape

Interview with Niall Cleary, Director and Co-ordinator of  Droichead Youth Theatre.

Hi Niall, so can you tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to be involved in Droichead Youth Theatre?

I’d been working as an actor for a few years when the Director of the Galway Youth Theatre asked me to direct a show for GYT.  I was quite reluctant at first but it was one of these scary things you got to do!  I did and I loved it.  I’ve been working with youth theatres ever since.  I then  did a course called ArtsTrain with NAYD, shortly after the post as Director of Droiched YT came alone.  I applied  and here I am!

So whats Mix Tape all about?

Good question!  The nature of any devised piece is that you are constantly searching for it until you perform.  We put a proposal together for NYCI to create unconnected scenes written and directed by the youth theatre and put them together and we’re amazed to find that we all felt like we we’re watching a tv chat show.  We persued that idea and we’re still chasing it.  Richard and Judy meets the Front Line meets MTV!

What are the cast like that you work with?

The cast are fantastic to work with.  The challenge of working with a big group is hearing all the voices and sharing ideas without descending into chaos!  The group are from the town and surrounding areas.  All aged between 14 and 18.  We’ve got a very mixed bag of personalities working on Mixed Tape.  Pardon the pun.  They are a talented group that keep on surprising me.

If you could describe Mix Tape in three words what would they be?

Live. Controlled. Chaos.

Is everyone looking forward to the show and what is it like now in rehearsals with only a little over two weeks left until they preform?

Two Weeks aaaggghhhh!  We’re looking forward to the the show.  It’s exciting to engage with an audience.  You need that interaction to motivate you towards the final push.  It’s hard work at times, easy to get carried away having fun.  I’m starting to put my serious face on.  The group aren’t fazed.  We want to have fun with our audience!

About his work experience:
I found my time in Droichead Arts Centre very interesting. I really enjoyed learning how the sound and lighting worked in the theatre. It’s nice to know because I want to work in film after school. I was also in the marketing department for 2 days. I found that fun and exciting! It would be a great place to work in the future. I think there should be a space for young people in Droichead, to create films and plays, and to have no older person telling them what to do. I found my time in Droichead Arts Centre very exciting and fun. I would love to work in a place like this when I’m older.

How did you find your work experience?
Very interesting. There are a lot of different things going on.

Before you worked here, what was your conception of the Droichead Arts Centre?
There is always something going on, but I got the impression it is often for an older audience.

Did you ever go to the exhibitions in Droichead before?
I went to a few and always found it interesting to see the artwork.

What did you like the most working in Droichead?
I am really fascinated by the technical side of things, like setting up the lights and checking the sound for a play. I also was particularly interested by the marketing department: how the promotion of events works and the designing of the posters.

What do you think would attract teenagers to visit Droichead?
It would be great if Droichead could offer a place for young people where they can brainstorm, without being told too much what to do, a place where we can come up with our own ideas. It would be good to have a mentor guiding us in doing so. It would be something different for us to do and it would certainly spark our creativity. We could be making a short movie for example. It would be great to have different groups doing different things.

Wishful Thinking is a curated programme of artists’ film, bringing together a selection of 16mm films by contemporary international artists: Luke Fowler, Jaki Irvine, Ursula Mayer, Rosalind Nashashibi, Roman Ondak, João Maria Gusmão & Pedro Paiva, Deborah Stratman, and Moira Tierney.

Borrowing its title from the common phrase to describe an optimistic and ever hopeful outlook, Wishful Thinking presents artists’ films that look beyond the surfaces and circumstances of the world as we find it. Whether by casting into the future, back to the past, or by re-approaching things that are all too familiar, the selected artists employ the particular characteristics of 16mm film to reshape our experiences of time through moving images.

One of the selected artists, Jaki Irvine, is based in Ireland, living and working in Dublin. Her works in film and video, whether in single-screen format or in more complex multi-screen installations, weave together enticing, though ultimately elusive narratives in which image, voice-over and musical score variously overlap, coalesce and diverge. These languid explorations of human interaction with the natural world, the built environment, and with other humans are suffused with a melancholic lyricism and leavened by a dark, dreamlike humour.

140 is the new film by director Frank Kelly, who lives and works in Drogheda. Frank was born in 1977 in Drogheda and studied Animation Production in Ballyfermot College of Further Education. His first film, Emily’s Song, which he co-wrote/directed/produced, was screened at over 30 International Film Festivals and received various awards.

His latest film 140 went into première on 10/10/10 in the Irish Film Institute in Dublin. 140 filmmakers in 140 locations around the world shot 140 seconds each on June 21st 2009, in 23 countries on 5 continents, simultaneously, capturing the same moment around the planet. This film is a true gem and Droichead is delighted to be showing it.

Do you enjoy watching a good film? Do you want to break the habit of spending week nights at home or in front of the television? Would you be willing to trade in the couch for a modern cosy cinema seat to enjoy a pocket friendly night out? Keep on reading, because Film @ Droichead is exactly what you are looking for. Oh and don’t forget to bring a friend, because… this is what you do with friends.

Film @ Droichead is our weekly digital film programme, presented in collaboration with Access Cinema. This partnership allows us to screen a fantastic mix of high quality cinema from around the world. Film @ Droichead presents a diverse programme of international films including an assortment of classic, foreign-language, art-house and independent cinema.

Film @ Droichead gives local audiences the opportunity to see a range of cultural films that rarely make it to commercial cinema for very reasonable prices.

Practical information

Seal the best deal with our seasonal tickets by only paying 36€ for 9 films. Not sure if you want to sign up for the season? No problem, you can also buy single tickets for 8€.

The films are shown on a large digital screen in the comfort of a modern cosy theatre with 162 seats.

We run a weekly screening on Tuesday at 8pm.

Click here to find the synopsis of all the films.

Dates: 26 January; 2-9-16 February
Price: 34€ for all for sessions

The arts have been hit by the budget, just like any other department, but it could have been worse. Art and Culture not only plays a considerable role in the history of Ireland but also remains important in contemporary life and it exerts a great attraction to the rest of the world. Ireland is known for its music, traditional folk, dance, literature and visual arts. Great names from Irish art and culture are famous worldwide such as Francis Bacon, Samuel Beckett, U2 and many more. The arts are one of the important values Ireland’s reputation relies upon and especially in times of recession, it is important to keep supporting creativity and artistic endeavour.

The budget has a relatively positive outcome for the arts community, considering the circumstances the country has to cope with. A budget of 150m has been allocated to culture and film, of which the Arts Council receives 65.2m, which is a reduction of 5%. The RTE website states the following: “Representatives for the arts have responded, saying the Budget represents a positive result for the arts community. Minister Hanafin has said funding for the Arts Council will help sustain its major arts organisations, keep regional venues open and programmed and support festivals and touring. A spokeswoman for the National Campaign for the Arts said the budget represents a positive result for the arts community. Although there have been cuts, they can be lived with she said and the continued strong investment in the arts shows that the case they made has been listened to. The NCFA is particularly pleased with the funding for Culture Ireland to promote Irish art abroad.”

In other words, this is somewhat a positive signal which values the importance of art and culture. The full breakdown is to be found on the RTE website. Click here to read more about the budget for the arts.

Teddy Doyle trained at the National College of Art and Design in the 1950s and worked as a scenic artist for more than 30 years. He was known around the town and beyond as a fantastic scenic painter, mastering water colours and always about on wonderful trips painting the scenery of the Boyne Valley, very often together with his great friend Liam O’Broin.

It was as an artist that he is best known in this part of the world, but he was also active in the cultural world as a stage manager, an actor, a puppeteer.

He worked on many major productions. His film credits include My Left Foot, which was made at Ardmore Studios in Wicklow. He stage-managed the Maureen Potter pantomimes from 1966-72 and he was also a fixture in Dublin’s Irish language theatre An Damer. Teddy was also an Executive Committee member of Irish Actors Equity and he formed the first union section to represent set designers. Teddy was also a master puppeteer who toured England with a marionette show for four years. There were many strings to his artistry. And these are only a few of the many things Teddy Doyle was involved in in the art and cultural scene of Ireland and beyond.

We are looking forward to the exhibition and hope to welcome you as well. ‘In tribute to the life of Teddy Doyle’ is on from the 1^st of December 2010 until the 5^th of January 2011.

Enjoy this little preview by Emer Mayock, she is just fantastic.

For more info and tickets, check out our website or ring our box office on 0419833946