POPULAR alt-pop group, Soda Blonde are launching Lasta Festival tomorrow (Thursday).
LASTA is a national arts programme for young people by young people, taking place across 8 venues in Ireland from 11th – 20th June 2021.
From all corners of Ireland this is the biggest collaborative arts festival taking place in venues across the country from Tralee to Limerick, Ennis to Galway, Portlaoise to Longford and Dún Laoghaire to Letterkenny.
In a new innovative approach to programming, 21 young curators were engaged by the NASC venues to programme a festival of work for children and young people from 11th to 20th June 2021, delivering for the first time, a national arts programme curated entirely by young people. Lasta is based on an original project conceived and delivered by Backstage Theatre, Longford in 2020.
The launch of the festival is now confirmed for June 10th at 7pm with the magnificent Soda Blonde, the hugely popular alt-pop band from Dublin (originally Little Green Cars).
This opening gig will stream live on Youtube Premiere and is free of charge and all are welcome to join the fun and find out what’s to come over the following ten days.
This is a fantastic coup for the young curators, to secure such a reputable and popular band brings such an exciting buzz to the opening event of the festival.
The Curators have delivered a unique and diverse programme of events featuring theatre, dance, visual art, music, film, spoken word along with innovative site specific and multi-disciplinary events.
Some of the highlights of the festival include: AfroPopCity, a Limerick based Afrobeat and Hip-Hop Collective; Silent, Pat Kinevane’s Olivier Award-winning play; Drifting, a short film set in a small midlands town, starring Paul Mescal and Dafhyd Flynn; What Moves You, featuring Snowflake-author Louise Nealon in conversation with movement artist Douglas Reddan; actor and writer Owen Colgan star of the hit show The Hardy Bucks, brings you The Dance of Life a collection of videos; Indie rock group NewDad; singer song-writer Aoife Meade who will entertain audiences with her jazzy tones and Irish and international traditional star Lisa Canny.
Lasta will showcase the breadth of creativity of our future arts programmers and producers. This promises to be a fresh, fun, diverse, accessible, and exciting festival of events. Booking is now open with many events free to attend.
The NASC Network Venues are: Backstage Theatre (Longford) www.backstage.ie; Dunamaise Arts Centre (Portlaoise) www.dunamaise.ie; glór (Ennis) www.glor.ie; An Grianán (Letterkenny) www.angrianan.com; Lime Tree Theatre (Limerick) www.limetreetheatre.ie; Pavilion Theatre (Dún Laoghaire) www.paviliontheatre.ie; Siamsa Tíre (Tralee) www.siamsatire.com and Town Hall Theatre (Galway) www.tht.ie
For further media information booking information can be found on each venue website – https://linktr.ee/lastafestival2021
Lasta is presented as part of Brightening Air | Coiscéim Coiligh, a nationwide, ten-day season of arts experiences brought to you by the Arts Council.
