Dublin's Bord Gáis Energy theatre will, for the very first time, open its stage doors for the local communities to tread the boards and sing about their life in the capital's docklands.
On May 21st, four new songs commissions will take centre stage in the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre supported by Dublin City Council, Creative Ireland and the affiliate choirs of Sing Ireland with special guests Jerry Fish, Robbie Kitt and Ciarán Kelly and MC on the night David Brophy.
City Arts Officer, Ray Yeates, tells us about the excitement of a project, years in the making, that celebrates the diversity of the communities that call Dublin's Docklands home.
Sing a Song of Docklands has come about from a long engagement of the City Arts Office with the Dublin Docklands.
It began with a 'think in’ on the subject of developing an annual Dublin international singing festival, hosted by Dublin City Arts Office in 2019, with renowned conductor David Brophy and fifty stakeholders from the arts, cultural and musical communities in Dublin. Emphasis was placed on Dublin as already being a singing city, on community, celebration, joy and coming together, singing as therapy, being encouraged to face your fear of singing, no dictating or preaching, being alive with singing and the idea of bringing your own voice and sharing a song.
The Docklands was suggested as the perfect location to explore the idea in terms of emotive and geographic context. It is traditionally the place of entry and egress for immigrants and emigration and between locals living for generations and for more recent residents it is a place of great diversity.
In 2022 four new song commissions, each focused on a different area of the Docklands, were awarded by Dublin City Council. The point of the new commissions were to bring professional musicians and music creators together with the local communities to create new songs that explored what it means to be a docklands resident.
The awards went to Max Greenwood, working with the young people of the RICC centre based in Irishtown and Ringsend; Alain Servant, working with the boat people of Grand Canal dock and the local communities of Grand Canal and Pearse Street; Carmel Whelan and Justine Nantale, working with Central Model School on the north side of the docks and City Quay National School on the south side of the docks; and Macdara Yeates, working with the Dockers Preservation Society and the local community of East Wall and Sheriff Street.
While we knew we wanted the new commissions to capture the diversity of the docklands nothing prepared us for such poignant lyrics, poetry and songs that give a unique insight into what it means to live and navigate the melting pot of new and old communities as well as the growth of business and commerce around the docklands area and how these all exist side by side.
Each of the commissions have already performed individually for their local communities but to now assemble on the Bord Gáis stage alongside affiliate choirs of our partner Sing Ireland as well as our special guests and with David Brophy as MC encouraging our audience to sing along, it will be the perfect night to come together to sing to celebrate our city by the sea.
Sing a Song of Docklands is at the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre on the 21st May - find out more here.
