Festival celebrates 25 years as it brings global, UK and Ireland premieres to Belfast and tackles wide-ranging real-life issues through dance, drama, music and performance.
Clocking up 25 glorious years, Belfast Children’s Festival 2023 is celebrating a huge birthday with a festival filled with silver linings this spring! The Festival, which will take place fully in-person, will host over 100 events across 10 days in the city, from 3-12 March 2023, and celebrate all that is excellent in children’s performance through spoken word, music and song.
This years festival will delight children young (and old) with an abundance of creative treats planned from Little Murmur, a true story of a young person who one day realises they have been misspelling their own name, that features ground-breaking projection, an extraordinary soundscape and a blizzard of paper and confetti; to PRISM, a story of Inter-dimensional travellers Dawn and Dusk, who have been stuck in an empty void dimension for far too long. When Dusk devises a radical solution to their problem, they are hurled into our dimension. This has catastrophic consequences for their onboard guide and best friend, PRISM!
Replay Theatre Company will celebrate 35 years of creating artistic adventures for young people with a new production, Mirrorball, the story of Cherrie Ontop. She knows they’ve finally come for her, leaving Cherrie with no choice but to smash through the dressing room mirror to escape the grasp of fear and prejudice. In a different universe she is faced with the ultimate choice; do we confront our fears and fight for what’s right? Replay will host a two-week run at this year’s festival in the Lyric with sister show, PRISM,
Tackling real life every-day issues including dyslexia, autism, disability, gender, homelessness and mental health, the 2023 festival will showcase stimulating and thought-provoking new works by local company Maiden Voyage Dance working with Erik Kaiel from Netherlands and artist Michael McEvoy as well as visiting performances from Belgium, Netherlands, UK and Ireland.
From the Netherlands, Theater Artemis presents The Invisible Man a show about everything you don’t see and the joy of remaining unseen. This is a tale of crazy happenings on stage as everything becomes quite bizarre for two artists, their stage technician and musician, as they are about to start their performance. Why is a coffee mug floating through the air? Where is the audience? Who is playing the piano? And is that a ghost sneaking off with that extension cord?!
Plock! a visual ‘circus-sound theatre’ performance and light! a captivating dance production for toddlers and young children, are part of the festival’s Focus on Flanders, the northern Dutch-speaking Region of Belgium, one of the world’s leaders in producing innovative theatre for young audiences.
Nobody, Somebody from Northern Ireland Opera is an exciting and powerful new opera created for and with teenagers and young adults focusing on the pertinent and pressing issues of housing stress and homelessness some young people are facing everyday. Performed with the Ulster Youth Orchestra the project has placed young people in the driving seat to tell the story of their own lived experience.
Recognising the cost-of-living financial pressure on families and communities, this year Belfast Children’s Festival has held ticket prices at £5 and £10 per ticket. The Festival, supported by Tourism Northern Ireland’s Tourism Event Funding Programme 2022/23 is also allocating a limited number of tickets to support local communities including those from areas of social need, to ensure as many families and communities as possible can access the festival.
Celebrating 25 years of entertaining and enthralling families, Young at Art Director, EibhIín de Barra said:
“We are so excited to launch Belfast Children’s Festival 2023 as we mark the significant milestone of turning 25 this year! That calls for a celebration, and this celebration is 10 days long! 25th Anniversaries are often called ‘Silver’, so after the difficult last few years, and indeed the challenging times we are currently finding ourselves in, we want to bring you the ‘silver lining’ to those clouds with the brightest, boldest and sunniest selection of theatre, dance, music, art and interactive events, including a massive range of free activities for all the family as part of our Big Belfast Birthday Bash. So, whether you are young, or simply young at heart, come and celebrate with us!
“This year we are working with Belfast City Council’s Lord Mayor to provide a Birthday Bash at City Hall and sites in the Cathedral Quarter. There will be music and performances as well as free events and activities for all the family to enjoy.” EibhIín added.
Roisín McDonough, Chief Executive, Arts Council of Northern Ireland said:
“Happy 25th birthday! The Arts Council of Northern Ireland is delighted to support Belfast Children’s Festival bringing younger audiences and their families amazing creative experiences. A leading children’s arts festival on these islands, it attracts the best acts from around the world.
“As Young at Art celebrates the 25th birthday of its flagship festival, we can reflect on the fact that they will have been responsible for introducing thousands upon thousands of children in Northern Ireland to the wonders of the arts. We all know how influential our early experiences are on the people we will become, so it’s heartening to think that those who first visited the Belfast Children’s Festival back in the late 1990s may now be returning with their own children, who will embark on their own life’s journey, similarly enthused and enriched by the arts.”
Lord Mayor of Belfast, Councillor Christina Black welcomed the launch of the festival, adding;
“We’re excited to be supporting Belfast Children’s Festival once again in this, their special milestone 25th anniversary year; and their first significant full international programme since 2020.
“A cornerstone of our city’s cultural experience for children, we’re proud to have supported the Belfast Children’s Festival over the years, and see it grow in reach, innovation and impact. Belfast really values its vibrant festival scene, which celebrates local talent, showcases the work of our emerging artists and, most importantly in the case of Belfast Children’s Festival, inspires our next generation of creative talent. The international element of this year’s programme is far-reaching, connecting us through creativity to other countries across the globe and attracting visitors to Belfast from near and far.”
In addition to 10 new shows, the Festival will return with a full Irish Language offering including Máire Zepf, and Rothar and festival favourite, Babaithe Cultúir.. To view the festival visit www.youngatart.co.uk. Communities wanting to secure tickets for events can apply via [email protected] or [email protected]
Ends
For media information, and to arrange interviews, contact;
Other key festival highlights;
Light!
Is a performance in which the light is dancing. Tiny lights and big spots traverse the stage. The light dances in rounds and the performers follow suit. The audience discovers a world of nuances and light intensity – the gloom of a torch, the bright light of a larger spot, each radiating a different atmosphere.
The performance teases the senses and sparks the imagination and little ones get the chance to experiment with shadows and light at the end of the performance when they are invited to join the performers on stage.
We Touch! We Play! We Dance! is a mesmerising, engaging and celebratory dance-show.
The four dancers weave around the space, inviting babies and children to join them in a warm hearted and playful performance. With music mixed live by a DJ, the dancers respond to the children, guiding them through a series of exchanges and encounters, with high fives, hugs and dancing.
This mesmerising, engaging and fun performance for children under 3s is a show filled with surprises and joys where you and your child can listen and watch, or let loose and join in, either way, you’ll have a wonderful time!
PRISM
Written by Gary Crossan and directed by Andrew Stanford, PRISM, is an exciting and immersive theatre experience, designed with accessibility at its core. In each performance, physically disabled audience members (and their grown-ups) have access to the best seats in the house, and all performances are captioned and audio described. British Sign Language (BSL) interpretation is also available, contact the box office for more details.
Dance Exposed
Maiden Voyage Dance returns to the Belfast Children’s Festival with a new short work for public spaces commissioned from acclaimed choreographer Erik Kaiel, creator of Festival favourites, Tetris and No Man is An Island.
Book www.youngatart.co.uk or 028 9024 3042. (Telephone booking line open Thurs 26 January to Fri 10 March; Mon – Fri 10am – 2pm).
