Art:2023 - NEST WEEK 1

This week Draíocht welcomes the NEST artists to Blanchardstown for a week of creativity and play. All in preparation for the big day, the first day of NEST, Saturday February 17th 2024, when the artists meet their hosts and the adventure begins.

To support our artists in their task, to write/make a bespoke 20 minute piece – theatre, dance, spoken word or song, inspired by their host and the time they spent with them, we have put together a programme of provocations to inform and inspire them.

What is it to make work with and for children and young people? What’s the difference between a 6 year old and an 8 year old? Led by NEST’s Artistic Director, Veronica Coburn, the programme will feature provocations from historian and author Liz Gillis, Draíocht’s very own Children & Youth Arts Officer, Sarah Beirne, and a host of leading international and national artists.

- Bodil Alling, Artistic Director of Gruppe 38, Denmark will lead a session entitled 'We Are Constructing Ourselves'. As artists we make to understand, firstly for ourselves, and then for others.

- Trina Haldar, Artistic Director of Mashi Theatre, UK will lead a session entitled '360 Degrees'. Children and young people lead lives of dimension and work exploring their lived reality needs to reflect that.

- Anne Cradden, sculptor, set designer and educator, Ireland, will host a practical workshop exploring how artists can use creative play to engage with children. Working together on making things can be a hugely effective way to approach and express thoughts, feelings and experiences, as well as to tell stories.

- And Paul Curley, Theatre Artist, Ireland, will lead a session entitled 'Magic?'. How do we make magic in found spaces, school halls, classrooms, school yards? Spaces where work for children are very often performed.

We’re all looking forward to the week ahead. There’ll be a bouncy ball and lots of laughter. Thinking too. And Dreaming!

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Draíocht is delighted to deliver NEST, a visionary, artistically ambitious project of scale that will see 24 stories inspired by Dublin 15’s children and young people, aged 20 months to 20 years, our youngest citizens, brought to life through collaboration with 24 leading multi-disciplinary artists - playwrights, theatre makers, spoken word artists, dance artists, and music artists - to produce 24 new contemporary works that map our present through the eyes of our children and young people.

Led by Artistic Director, Veronica Coburn, NEST is about citizenship alongside the idea of home, both individual and collective, a single house, a familial place, a society. It will mark the Decade of Centenaries by exploring the ideals of our origin state, liberty, equality and equity in a contemporary context.

NEST's 24 new pieces of work will be performed in homes and schools across Dublin 15, 3 times, on March 1st 2024. Then the project will culminate in a bold festival of new and ambitious work for children and young people in mid-March 2024 when all 24 works will take over Draíocht’s building and can be seen over one week.

NEST is based on HOME THEATRE an original idea by Marcus Vinicius Faustini (Brazil) and Kerry Kyriacos Michael (UK).

#DecadeOfCentenaries #Art2023 #NEST

NEST is funded by ART: 2023, a Decade of Centenaries Collaboration between The Arts Council and the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media.

Read more ... Art:2023 ... and ACI Press Release