Huge Numbers Sample the Culture Night Menu
A celebration of all things artistic prevailed throughout the streets of Wexford Town on Friday last. Wexford’s first Culture Night saw throngs of people take to the streets and venues of the town to sample a feast of cultural activity – from clowns to caricatures; pipe bands to promenade performances; from samba drumming to traditional mumming.
Getting Culture Night off to a good start was Virginian bluegrass band ‘The Hot Seats’ at 1pm under the Greenacres canopy in Selskar Square. A musical shin-dig like no other, which energised the town, and provided a true indicator of what was to come….
Sharp at 5pm, the bells of Rowe Street Church rang out throughout the town and heralded the opening of Wexford’s first ever Culture Night. From that point on, Wexford Town was alive with artistic activity. The younger culture vultures were well catered for in the Bullring, which was a hub for puppet shows, clowning, art workshops and face painting. Selskar Square was another extremely popular outdoor venue, where festivities commenced with a hearty performance by renowned Ballindaggin Pipe Band, who went on to parade to South Main Street. In Selskar, crowds continued to gather and partied with the Wexford Community Samba Group, followed by the athletic hip-hop and dancing styles of Sheila Grace Dance Company.
A significant footfall was felt in the art galleries which opened late for the night, and the RNLI welcomed exceptional numbers for tours of their new building. Wexford Campus (IT Carlow) put on an exceptional show and embraced the theme of ‘See All Sorts’ to new levels, as was witnessed by the two liquorish all-sorts students bouncing through the crowds.
The visual art element of the programme was inundated with audiences. Mairéad Furlongs illustrated talk on Picasso in Westgate Heritage Centre was full to capacity, as were the Wexford Arts Centre exhibition tours, facilitated by Catherine Bowe. The Arts Centre was also jam-packed for the Cácá Milís Cabaret, which gave its usual sample of music, song and more from local and national artists.
Appropriately, opera was the order of the day in Wexford Opera House. Four performers from the 2009 festival performed excerpts from "La Traviata" "Rigoletto". The Opera House also provided the icing on the cake, when the flytower was illuminated promptly at 10.50pm.
The 8pm performance by Gillian Williams, Arun Rao and Elizaveta Blummena in St. Iberius Church, as part of Music for Wexford’s programme, also reached a capacity audiences. And the Screen / Curracloe Mummers provided another highlight in the evening’s programme as part of the Ceilí Mór in the Dun Mhuire Theatre.
Literature played an important part in the Culture Night programme with the launch of anthology of Different Voices, Different Stories at 5pm. An exceptionally large crowd joined award-winning novelist Christine Dwyer Hickey in Wexford Library, as she read from her latest novel. For those interested in our local heritage, Nicky Furlong took over forty people on a walking tour of Loch Gorman.
If you missed this years Culture Night, there can be no excuse to miss next years….. Culture Night has been confirmed as taking place on Friday, 24th September 2009 – so write it in your diary now!
Sinéad Redmond, Public Art Administrator with the Arts Department of Wexford County Council , who co-ordinated Culture Night, commented “The positive feedback has been intense and affirms our opinion that Wexford’s first Culture Night has undoubtedly been a success. Not only did it have a cultural impact on the town, it also had an economic impact, and we hope to embrace and develop this real benefit for Culture Night 2010”
Wexford Culture Night is part of a national festival which will saw eleven towns and cities throughout Ireland taking part. Culture Night is an initiative co-ordinated by Temple Bar Culture Trust and supported by the Department of Arts, Sports and Tourism, Wexford Borough Council and Wexford County Council.
