SPLIT-TONE Xhosa chants and tumbling, turning Australian circus performers marked official "show time" in Galway last night as the annual arts festival set the city alight.
Musicians Philip Glass, Cuban diva Omara Portuondo, Blondie and video artist Bill Viola are among over 400 performers booked for the two-week programme which was opened by Druid and Tony-award winning actor Marie Mullen yesterday evening in the Galway Bay Hotel.
The Philip Glass Ensemble's evening of chamber music in St Nicholas's Collegiate Church is already booked out - even press passes have been rationed - and festival organisers report a keen interest in the Australian physical theatre troupe Circa among many other acts.
The Australians presented the European premiere last night of their latest show, By the Light of the Stars which are No Longer, drawing on the music of Leonard Cohen, Sigur Ros and DJ Shadow, in the festival's big top at the Fisheries Field. South African director Yael Farber opened Molorain the Town Hall Theatre. Her interpretation of her country's truth and reconciliation commission draws on the Greek classic The Oresteiawith split-tone singing by a chorus of Xhosa tribeswomen. Chicago's Northlight Theatre Company also presents the European premiere of Larry Gelbart and Craig Wright's new comedy Better Late, starring John Mahoney and Mike Nussbaum.
The programme's dance element includes Mexican Tania Pérez-Sala. Music includes Mali maestros Tinariwen in a double-bill with Mayra Andrade; the Preservation Hall Jazz Band from New Orleans; New York legends Blondie, celebrating the 30th anniversary of their Parallel Linesalbum; Lúnasa; and double bill performances by KT Tunstall and Tom Baxter, and The Dandy Warhols and Ash. The Saw Doctors will play two 20th anniversary concerts in Salthill Park on July 26th and 27th.
Galway's Druid Theatre presents an Enda Walsh season with his latest work The New Electric Ballroom, several one-act plays and a series of "Druid debuts" with work from three new writers: Maria Elner, Stephen Jones and John McManus.
Fabulous Beast Dance Theatre presents Gisellewhile Galway writers present two world premieres: Waiting for Elvisby Eileen Gibbons and Micheál Ó Conghaile's Go dTaga do Ríocht.
The programme includes two children's shows, comedy from Des Bishop and Ed Byrne among others, literature with punk poet John Cooper Clarke and British theatre critic Michael Billington, and a strong visual arts dimension.
This latter segment is already under way, with weekend openings of work by visual artist Bill Viola and musician Joni Mitchell's interpretation of the consequences of war.
Other exhibitions include work by Pauline Bewick, Artspace artists and the Royal Hibernian Academy's (RHA) Ashford Gallery tour, The Plinian Sponge, maybe?
Street theatre includes the annual Macnas festival parade, this time on Sunday night.
• The Galway Arts Festival runs until July 27th. Further details are available from the box office on 091-566577, or the official website, www.galwayartsfestival.com.
