LIMERICK’s international festival of performing arts, unFringed 2011, opens on the night of Wednesday 26 to provide four full days of entertainment.
“The whole idea or theme behind the festival this year is Feel the Love at Unfringed 2011,” says Gill Fenton, PRO for host organ Belltable Arts Centre. “We have quite a few shows with a ‘love’ or ‘loving relationship’ theme running.
For example, Uninvited Guests and Fuel Theatre Company are coming from the UK to present ‘Love Letters Straight From Your Heart’. We got some help from the British Arts Council to bring it over here for this its Irish premier and are thrilled to do so”.
On to CoisCéim Dance Theatre’s ‘Swimming With My Mother’, “a beautiful piece about the relationship between a son and mother expressed through dance and performance. And there is Sorcha Kenny’s ‘My Life In Dresses’”.
Kenny researched and wrote this one-woman show which she delivers, spinning dramas from the true-life tales behind various women’s dresses of long ago and what happened when wearing them.
Gill makes the point that these shows are only some of the engaging line up available to us from 11am right though until 9pm over the few days across city venues.
“Naomi O’Kelly from Pontoon Theatre Company is from Limerick. For the past two years she is based in London but continues to work between Ireland and the UK. From Naomi, unFringed commissioned the play ‘Her Name Was Pamela Mooney’ and this work sounds really interesting, keeping again with the theme of love”.
Who the hell was Pamela? She belongs to the world of pubertal crushes. O’Kelly’s ode to teenage love is based on interviews with 50 people aged 12 to 75, and ‘Her Name Was Pamela Mooney’ “looks back at our experiences of puberty, and asks if we mythologise our childhood crushes? If so, why?”
Another show Fenton points towards is from a new local company, Wildebeest Theatre Company. ‘A Different Animal’ is directed by Ciarda Tobin and Wildebeest is a collective of workers, some Limerick and from other parts, who presents its second production to date.
Two strangers meet at one’s home and their evening turns to dark…
This Arts page overview of the theatre elements to unFringed (January 26 to 29) will finalise on a sweet note, children’s show An Shean Fhear Beag. Branar Téatar is the provider of this beautiful puppet tale of an old man and lost dog.
As with many other productions booked by Belltable, it is set to original music and gets a supported platform in this fest of many colours.
