With theatre from Chile, Chicago and Korea, music from Beth Orton and Bela Fleck, street art from Australia and flamenco from Spain, the ingredients of this year's Galway Arts Festival promise to be nothing if not exotic.
Native produce is not neglected either, with a new play from Mac nas, The Lost Days of Ollie Deasy, directed by Mikel Murfi; new plays from Bedrock, Druid and Pan Pan; and the Macnas parade, which focuses this year on creatures in flight.
Highlights of the Republic's leading arts festival from July 18th-30th, sponsored by Nortel and now in its 23rd year, were announced yesterday in Dublin. "I wanted to represent the many different styles of theatre, from text-based to visual, to the young British companies who are fusing text with video and photography," the festival's new director, Rose Parkinson, told The Irish Times. "I also wanted to showcase the work of the quality theatre companies in Ireland."
The menu includes the Stepp enwolf Theatre Company from Chicago with its production of the Tony award-winning Sideman by Warren Leight. One of the most intriguing shows, Alice Under- ground, will be performed by the Franco-Chilean Teatro del Silen cio, and involves a 20 ft wide, 8 ft deep pit. The usual festival Big Top venue, the Fisheries Field, will not be deep enough, so the search is on for a different site.
Other shows to look out for are Cookin', where four Korean chefs are given an hour to prepare a meal, and the shortest event of the festival, It's Your Film, performed live by Stan's Cafe (UK) to an audience of one every 180 seconds.
There's more: singer/songwriter Ron Sexsmith; a tribute to the Beat poets; visual art by Ed Ruscha and Mick Mulcahy; a concert of Michael Nyman's music performed alongside photographs of Stalin; and the Archipelago, a series of multi-coloured tunnels of light for both adults and children.
Ms Parkinson is already planning collaborations in 2001 and 2002 with the Edinburgh Festival and the Adelaide Festival in Australia. "Collaborations make sense. If you premiere a show in two countries, you cut your costs in half," she said.