The Belfast Festival The Arts Show

They'll join me to discuss the impact and relevancy of blavt fephlt

at Queen's plus their thoughts on how it will evolve in years to come.

First to visual art and wish by internationally acclaimed Cuban

American artist Jorge Rodriguez gephrgets rada. He's created a land

art object in the Titanic quarter. As the Belfast Festival launches for

the 51st time the capital is busy creating the biggest piece of land

art in Northern Ireland's history. My artwork is large portraits that

can be seen from space. My project is called Wish. It is a little girl

I chose, six years old in Belfast, who I asked to make a wish when I

took the photograph that I based this image on. My evolution as an

artist has taken it to this ex-treatment we are going to be able

to take an image of all of Belfast and still see this literal girl

smiling up at us. That's how big it is.

The premise was always to do something that was pro found. At the

same time as very simple. We are very interested in having audiences

and communities around the city directly engaging and participating

in creative practice. We get a lot of people coming on, a lot of

volunteers, whole families coming out. That's a big part of it. It

looks like a series of lines but from an aerial viewpoint it looks

like something difficulty. We are talking about 1,000 tonnes of soil.

It is going to be beautiful. It is going to bring a little bit of art

and culture into the community. The excitement is building. I've seen

them looking back at what we've achieved. This has been a really

important project that reflects engagement by audiences and

communities. This is a wish for all our children. It is open for people

to happen, like people saying this is the new face for Belfast.

And Wish by Jorge Rodriguez Gerada is at the Titanic quarter in

Belfast. Richard, the international element

seems to be getting heavily pushed this year. Is this because you've

taken ownership of it and you want to push that? It is something I'm

very keen about. I think the Wish Project you referred to reflects the

skill and ambition of the festival going forward. We have 24 countries

represented in this year's festival. We want to really bring the best of

international arts practice to Belfast. Often with premieres and

work, that can be seen here first. We want to make it a very unique

experience for audiences. Jane, for you is that ambition and breadth

here in the programme this year? I think those are the sort of words we

want to be hearing from our festival director. Words like international

and exclusive. But accessible as well, and affordable. I think it is

slightly ironic that 51 years in we are still talking about the

relevance of the Belfast Festival and yet in a much shorter period of

time, festivals like the Cathedral quarter in West Belfast have carved

out a niche tore themselves and have their own constituencies. And yet

there is still that sense that, much as the festival may love Belfast,

Belfast has yet to fully fall in love with its festival. Tony, why do

you think that is I'm not sure. I think a lot of the other festivals

have grown off the back almost of the Belfast Festival at Queen's. You

learn from your Big Brother. Certainly coming from West Belfast

and seeing the growth of it over the last 25 years. I was at the first

ever one, in 1988, in Dunville Park. This year we had Faithless, huge

acts on the Falls Road and linking in with other communities in the

Shankill Road, which emcompasses West Belfast. I think smaller

festival do learn from the Belfast Festival. The health is dependent on

the east Belfast arts festival. We are different. There is great

additionality because of that. If one of those events gets into

trouble, we are going to as well. It is about creating a critical mass of

audience engagement. But it is interesting that after 50 years we

are still saying, why sit relevant? How can it be relevant? Is it

because of its location? Is it the Queen's element to it? Is it the BT

9 location, seen as the leafy suburbs? I think the festival has to

evolve it is an organic being. It should reflect the time, the place

that we are in. When we talk about a city-wide festival, for me it means

taking Tumble Circus to Belmont Park and to the falls Road. It means

taking a great Danish ensemble to the north of the city. Also means

affordable prices. 95% of our price this is year a ?16 and over. That's

a key aspect of what I'm bringing to the festival - accessibility. We'll

continue this conversation later. But for the moment, thank you.

Victor is a new dance performance by Belgian company Campo. It peoples

two performers who complement each other in a burflings intimate

movement. -- in a burflings intimate movement. -- beautiful, intimate

movement. It is a very quiet and slept piece. You really get the

chance and the time as well to zoom in on two bodies and to see the

differences between the bodies. I had a suggestion maybe we should

make it between a child and a man. We worked with a child because we

wanted to show vulnerability, which we think is really important. The

'90s, when I was 12, we had a big issue with a paedophile. Belgium was

convulsed in horror at the man accused of kidnapping and abusing

six girls, four of whom he murdered and they are buried. We noticed that

somehow Belgian society wasn't able to deal wit, that there was always a

kind of dangerousness about men and child. That's really wrong to live

in this fear and to be afraid. So there was an idea to make a

performance which would look differently at intimacy between a

man and a boy. You have this man and this child. They are dancing a duet.

If we would say this is father and son, everybody would think it is

beautiful. If we would say this is a paedophile and a child, everybody

would be disgusted. But what if we don't say words and it is up to you

to deal with this question mark we are proposing? This ambiguous

relationship between the two characters on stage was developed

over several months in rehearsals. Now I can trust him very well but in

the beginning he was a stranger to me. After a while we began to trust

each other. When we had rehearsal, we always had lunch together before

starting the rehearsal, so it would also connect us humanly before being

connect in the artistic process. This is the piece where you are

animals and this is the piece where you are more like a father and a

son. This is the piece where it becomes more dangerous and maybe you

are in love with him. It was searching, putting scenes in

different ways. I think the solution came by deciding OK, we don't need

to choose what they are. We really wanted to make a piece which loaves

it -- leaves it open to the audience and the audience is making the

translation. Viktor by Belgian company Camp

organisation. We'll have a performance by at the end of the

programme but first the piano played like you've never seen it played

before, using sticks, picks and even credit cards. Is Pianorchestra.

-- this is Pianorchestra. Piano lessons will ever be the same

again. Catalyst Arts are celebrating 20

years. They've given hundred of young artists not only their first

chance to Zimbabwe it but curate artists who would go on to Turner

Prize glory. I first came across Catalyst Arts 20

years ago and was instantly excited by the provocative, incentive art

that it was doing. -- incentive art. -- incentive art. This was art as a

challenge, a challenge to the viewer and a challenge to the city, too. In

1993, three of wlaft's -- Belfast's main galleries had closed. The city

had little to offer young artists and nearly all students graduating

from the arts college were leaving Northern Ireland. But one group of

graduates wanted to stay. They wanted to make live art,

photography, installation as. Nobody was interested in exhibiting this

kind of work, so they decided to do it themselves. The first Catalyst

gallery was off Donegal Street in what we now call the Cathedral

quarter. One used Wilmot House, another used builders' skips around

the city. Over the years, Catalyst has forged an international

reputation, as former directors have gone on to other projects in Belfast

and beyond. Artists have also come from around the world to show their

work. 2013 Turner Prize nominee David Shrigley had one of his first

shows at Catalyst in 1996. Catalyst puts on around a dozen shows of new

work every year, in its gallery here on College Court and around the

city. Hundreds of artists have had their work seen thanks to Catalyst

and many have had their first exhibition here. Catalyst is not a

business. Nor can it ever. It challenges many of today's

prevailing messages about what the arts can and should do. It is

different to other galleries because it is run by artists. People with

the courage and conviction to follow their own ideas. New people, new

directions are constantly coming on board. People can only stay for two

years. It is sometimes naive but it is always inquiztive. -- inquiztive.

Artists still face problems. Catalyst may be 20 years old but it

is always the willful teenager fighting back against the narrowness

of the times. We need that attitude now as much as we ever did.

Catalyst Arts at 20 is at the Golden Thread Gallery until the end of

November. Richard, you have come back to Belfast from Dublin. Due

sense a difference in how we approach culture here? I've come

back to the city after 33 years away. It's a long time to be away

from home and it is wonderful to come back. But there's a Burj ong,

vibrant -- burgeoning arts centre here. Jane, as a critic, who has to

go to events Andrews them next day, what are you looking for? Super

quality? As a critic what we want is something that can't be seen

anywhere else. That you cannot see this anywhere but in Belfast, now.

It's very important that we bring international acts to Belfast, that

we also create a platform. I know there is a lot this year. If we

continue to create that platform for local art ayes, musicians and film

makers, the because the talent is here. The success of this festival

in future years will depend on the city's ownership. The people of the

city feeling ownership of the festival, feeling that's ours, that

everybody feels ownership. How due measure the success of a festival?

Is it the numbers of bums on seats? Is it the box office, or is is it

the feed-back you are getting. It is a measure of all those things.

Different festivals and fund terse all have different agendasment all

those elements, the number of people who attend and how they engage are

important. But artistic excellence and programmes at the centre of what

I'm. A I know the fiscal health of my festival depends on its

programming. What if nobody is seeing it. Imagine you have the

venue booked and there's something fantastic on stage and there's three

people in the audience? I think people will respond to great

artists, great work and meaningful work, particularly work with a

resonance in the time and place of the communities we are among. There

seems to be a fragmentation of festivals happening. I always

wonder, should Belfast maickt a destination festival in the same way

as borrowed, and block off the month of May or the month of June and

bring all these festivals together. Stop competing? It needn't be a

competition. What we want the Belfast Festival to be is special.

We want that sense of excitement, that you open a programme and there

are four things on the same night at the same time. And you can't go to

them all. That's both good and bad. To me I would keep the festival

where it is. I might change the name. What would change it to?

Wonder if Queen's were in a different part of the city, white

make a difference? -- would it make a difference. The fact that's in BT

9. People think, I can't go to that baize didn't go to Queen's --

because I didn't go to Queen 's. It's a double whammy for and

against. Fit was simply is Belfast Festival, as it is the Edinburgh

Festival, would it make a difference? Richard, you know

Edinburgh well. You've worked there. What do you make of my proposal? Sit

madness, to think of Belfast as a cultural destination similar to

Edinburgh, and all the festivals exist? I completely agree wusmt

we've got a rich and diverse cultural offering we can celebrate

with the rest of the world. We've got unique stories to tell. What I

worry about, Edinburgh has 11 world-beating festivals over the

summer. The rest of the year is very important in Edinburgh as well. If

you speak to colleagues in theatres and in concert halls and arts

centres around the city, they are worried about what happens in the

spring and the winter. Edinburgh ghost time. Not a ghost time but

there's a different atmosphere in the place. I know the out to lunch

festival beats the cold January blues as well. Exactly. Does this

mean there might have to be some overarching festival committee that

looks arftion or am I piling more and more paperwork and bodies into

it? None of us want additional bureaucracy but what we do want are

people within local and central Government to take the festival

offering for the whole city and the cultural infrastructure of the city

seriously. Yes, to help us promote it within our own communities and

without. Thank you to Tony and to Jane and to Richard as well.

We are going to stay in Belfast. A new play from Kaboshe theatre

company. The ghosts of six Belfast women tell their stories on a

moonlit night in one of the city's oldest churches.

Belfast by moonlight came about because this year Belfast is 400

years old. We wanted to create an original piece of theatre that would

celebrate that and would question what Belfast is about. The choir

present to you the industrialisation of Belfast and you question why is

Belfast only about bricks and mortar, what about the people?

# Without which no city can with justice call itself a great city. #

This was our church. It was essential to us that was a piece

that would fit within the spiritual space, so the awed Jens time the

look at the space around them as well as engage with the narrative

and the music. We commissioned Martin to create an original score

for it. Neil listening to the tone of each

of the actresses create individual vocal scores for each of them that

played to their strength as singers but was honest to the vocal tone of

each of the campckets We didn't marry, because first of all there

were all these things that had to be done. He to have the breakfast paid

for, the trusseau bought, I had to have the honeymoon in the Royal

Hotel tremore paid for. The six female characters are women from the

last 400 years. I very much wanted to have a collection of women off

and from or connected with Belfast. We couldn't just snap our fingers

and have money. He was a clerk in the docks and was a teacher. We

never got it saved. You get this collision of feminine voices within

both the spoken word and within the sung word.

It is fresh. It is live. It is unique. Nothing like this whatever

been done before. When we leave, we'll go out and we look at our city

differently and we'll look at ourselves differently.

That's what's been in festival. Now there are three days left. Here's

what's coming up: It contain as stunt so dangerous

that even Houdini refused to at the same time.

Former Tory MP Jonathan Aitken give as talk on Margaret Thatcher in the

Great Hall? Queen 's. Crimea square tells story of

Shankill Road. Join me live on Twitter straight

after the show. You can get your festival updates every day on BBC

Radio Ulster's festival desk and again at 5. 55. Arts Extra every

weekday at 6. 30pm. We're back next month, including a major feature on

the Turner Prize in Derry Londonderry. We leave you with music

from Clay Ross, the lead singer of a Brazilian bluegrass band at the

festival. Goodnight. APPLAUSE

# My girl, my girl you are my whole world

# You're my Moon, my stars and my sun

# But I think I might way forever for you to make me your number one

# Oh why must I love you # Why, oh why must I care

# You don't want me like I want you # You don't see me the way I see you

# You don't need me like I need you # You don't love me the way I love

you # My girl, my girl I brought you

flowers # Brought you diamonds and gave you

a home # Why must you be so cold and silent

# Why must my lonely heart forever roam

# Oh why oh why must I love you # Why oh why House I care

# You don't want me like I want you # You don't see me the way I see you

# You don't need me like I need you # You don't love me the way I love

you #.

# Oh the tears that I cry # Oh the hopes that I held inside

# The years I happily gave way couldn't make you stay, couldn't

make you stay # You don't want me like I want you

# You don't see me the way I see you # You don't need me like I need you

# You don't love me the way I love you

# You don't love me the way I love you #.

APPLAUSE