
NORTHSIDE Misfits Community Drama Group took on Limerick2020โs mantle for Manchesterโs mighty Day Parade on Sunday June 19. This enormous carnival manifests the creative spirit of Mancunian communities and is produced by Walk the Plank. That outfit came to visit Moyross in March to view the Misfitโs original play โtaLKโ in the spirit of support.
According to cultural programmer Niamh Bowen of Culture House, โWalk the Plank is a company specialising in outdoor performance and artworks who visited Limerick to see the work of local groups as well as scoping out the cityโ.
All part of this relentless 2020 bid process. Consequently The Misfits, under theatre practitioner Karen Fitzgibbon, were invited to Manchester to experience preparations for the parade as much as the event on the day.
โWe flew out early morning Friday June 17, directly after we staged โtaLKโ at the Belltable. We got to see work in progress at Granada Studios [production site], a spectacle of colour with a sewing room, areas for bigger pieces, costumes and props. We met European representatives from Belgium and Italy and had a full tour of what participants were doingโ.
Its relevance to European Capital of Culture is to do with equipping communities with the knowledge, production skills, logistics and creative push to mount the razzle dazzle of parades of this enormous impact.
โThis is part of community capacity building work that will be an important element in Limerickโs bid,โ observes Bowen.
First hand from Karen Fitzgibbon: โWe met with cllr Pat Carey, a Dublin man living there whose concept Manchester Day Parade was seven years agoโ. Led by Manchesterโs Lord Mayor Carl Austin-Behan, this yearโs theme was EUREKA! The primary entry condition set the 2,500+ participants of โall ages, colours and sizesโ was โthat everything had to be pushed or walked or cycledโ.
Street performances that issued were all the more remarkable for their being no street barriers in place so that โwhile casual but really spectacular, it felt very connectedโ.