Street Theatre or ‘Spectacle’ as it’s called in the business is one of the most exciting, colourful and an exuberant form of public creative expression and it is about time that Longford had some.
Street Theatre is so exciting because it embodies the best of music, dance, drama, painting, costume design, visual crafts and manual skills; it has something for every participant.
The establishment of – Mide – a Longford-based street theatre group was long overdue and when fully up and running will add a magical and dynamic element to our public events such as: St. Patrick’s Day Parades, Easter Parades, Dead of Night Festival, Ardagh Fright Fest, the Lanesborough Monster Festival, sporting occasions and many other civic events in the county.
Who should get involved? Anyone interested in; dance, drama any performing arts, people who are interested in costume and prop making, in fact anyone who has an interest in the arts or is good with their hands will be especially welcome. Do not discount yourself –everyone has something to offer.
The core of our Street Theatre Group is a group of adults with experience in some art-form or who has useful manual skills and this will be augmented with students from primary and secondary schools in Longford who will provide the dance, music and performance elements. The impressive ensemble his will be topped off by local musicians in costume providing the musical score to wonderfully imaginative pageants on our streets.
Longford County Arts Office has commissioned the internationally famous street theatre company ‘Artastic’ to come to Longford and work with the fledgling group imparting skills in prop-making street performance, fantastic costume design and making and all of the skills of the Mardi Gras.
The work with Artistic was followed by workshops in the Granard Enterprise Centre with tom Meskill from Macnas and will continue with workshops in puppet making and costume making by Catherine McGowan from Bui Bolg in Wexford in the Granard Creativity Centre in September.
If you would like to get n touch with Mide please contact:
Shane Crossan 087 6103003
Fergus Kennedy 086 8517595