At the beginning of September, the ISACS team flew to Catalunya to attend FiraTàrrega 2022. What an incredible experience!

A festival that fosters creativity, innovation, and artistic production, while creating fertile soil for alliances based on networking, partnerships and synergies with the sector’s organisations.

The ISACS team travelled with over 25 Irish delegates – artists, makers, festival programmers, policymakers, arts producers and more.

On September 9, at 12:30 pm, we hosted Focus Irlanda in La Llotja, where we showcased our artists and art professionals – allowing them to pitch their work – and presented our Art-Illa | International exchange programme with the Baleàric islands, with artists Jude PendersGill Byrne, Rosa Forteza and Alejandro Navarro mentored by Enric Ases.

ISACS members’ feedback about FiraTàrrega

FiraTàrrega was an adventure like no other, we wept, we laughed, we danced, we sang, never knowing what each show had in store for us. Every performance I experienced was entirely different from the next. It’s hard to pick favourites as the energy and mood varied from show to show. Seeing so many shows over the course of four days gave me the opportunity to explore different types of street performance. I found myself thinking about which formats I liked best. Jotting down notes in the evening so I wouldn’t forget.

As a designer and maker pieces such as Runa and Los Perros executed such a beautiful style with minimal props, each prop and costume piece carefully picked to represent the world each show was portraying. I rediscovered my love for immersive performance at El dia que va morir l’últim panda and Mirage moving around the space and becoming part of the environment. The final feature Ill mention was the music as many of the shows had such a strong musical aspect that complemented the energy of the piece. Some pieces featured live music, some pre-recorded. Some shows had music that I could best describe as rhythmic soundscapes, a collection of sounds and voices that grew and warped throughout the performance, enriching the overall environment of the show.

Overall I arrived back home from Tàrrega filled with stories, ideas and new friends. My experience there has left me feeling incredibly inspired to continue developing my work as an artist and maker.

-Bridget Ni Dhuinn

ISACS Artists Performing at FiraTàrrega

 

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