Episode 7 The Arts Show

Hello and welcome to the first Arts Show of 2016,

and we kick off the new year here in the city of Lisburn.

This is Lisburn's Island Arts Centre

on the banks of the River Lagan.

Opened in 2001,

it has earned a reputation as one of Ireland's

major multi-arts venues, created as a bespoke centre

for performance, dance, community arts and exhibition space.

And with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland recently

relocating its headquarters to Lisburn, there's a real sense

that the cultural map is expanding beyond nearby Belfast.

Here's what's coming up on tonight's show...

We welcome the Chinese New Year with a look at the symbolism

of the celebrations and its growing local appeal.

The Arts Show exclusively reveals the winners

of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's

major individual artist awards for 2016.

One of our finest young silversmiths, Stuart Cairns,

holds his first solo exhibition at the R-Space in Lisburn.

And we've live music from Derry/Londonderry band, Ports.

I'm tweeting now - @BBCArtsShow. Do join me.

Now, while most of us have already welcomed in 2016,

Chinese New Year is still to come.

Officially, it is on the 8th of February,

but the various celebrations culminate in a gala event

in Belfast's Ulster Hall on Sunday the 21st of February.

In recent years, it's attracted a more diverse local audience,

but what do we know about the symbolism surrounding it?

Anna Lo, MLA, reports for The Arts Show.

The Chinese New Year takes place on the second new moon

after the winter solstice.

Around the world, it's celebrated by one in six people on this planet.

It is a feast of movement, symbolic dance, colour and mythology.

This is a large event in the social calendar,

with lots of local groups and artists taking part in the festival.

But what does it signify?

The years are named after the creatures

of the Chinese animal zodiac.

We are moving from the year of the goat to the year of the monkey.

Each has their own meaning.

Chinese culture practises many art forms, such as lion dancing,

which is taught right here in Belfast.

The significance of lion dancing is, in our tradition,

and our culture is...chase away evil spirit.

CHINESE MUSIC

During the lion dancing, we feed a lion with an iceberg lettuce.

After the lion eating it, the lion will spit back some left over.

The lion shares with you some good luck and fortune.

Chinese New Year is not only celebrated by Chinese.

We welcome every culture and celebrate together.

The lion dance is one of a number of significant symbols

used at Chinese New Year.

The art of paper folding has a strong cultural role to play.

Chinese New Year means to me, it's very important for the New Year,

that means we pass, last year we pass all the bad things away

and we welcome the good things coming.

This one...

it means good luck.

OK?

And with those, we would put on both sides of the door,

and that is the word for good luck,

but we do not put it that way, we put it upside down.

Upside down means coming.

That means good luck is coming to that house.

Chinese people would like red colour.

It represents good luck.

The gold, gold means money.

The love of the colour red comes from Chinese mythology.

It is said there was a beast called Nian, which ate villagers.

The villagers used to offer food to appease him

at the beginning of each year.

They discovered hanging red paper at the door kept him at bay.

It has been considered lucky ever since.

It's a mixture of tradition, family, superstition and beauty.

Everything has a meaning and it points to hope and happy future.

Chinese New Year has some basic format that never changes.

There'll always be lion dances, there'll be lots of lanterns.

And there's also lots of noise.

There's the very loud drumming music.

This year, we're delighted to have a group coming from China,

a world-famous group that are coming to perform,

and there'll be acrobatics, there'll be music and dance,

traditional instruments and there'll be of course the face-changer,

which is a very spectacular performance.

If you've never seen it, it's brilliant.

Maybe back 30 years ago, it was looking back to home,

but I think now it's looking out to the world.

PIANO PLAYS

I think people that I've listened to recently that are doing

something really interesting.

There's a lot of talk and excitement around a young girl

who goes under the name Jealous Of The Birds.

ACOUSTIC GUITAR PLAYS

It's that thing of something that rings true, it sounds honest.

The type is music I would play is like a post-punk indie folk music.

# Shape on the grass... #

My music feels, to me, at least, like a weird marriage of, like,

whimsical, folky, hippie stuff from '60s and '70s

but also, like, a kind of punk, grunge undercurrent to it.

Not to be wowed by age or something, but there seems an integrity

and a sophistication beyond her years.

But that's been the complete opposite from me,

because probably when I was her age or Soak's age,

my songs weren't very good!

# I'm a singing girl... #

The maker that we've selected as the one to watch for 2016,

Patricia Millar.

Patricia's work is really vibrant, really interesting,

quite different.

I take my inspiration from the Ards Peninsula.

'I collect local clay from that area.

'I'll harvest rushes, grasses, seaweed even,

'and those are worked into the clay to make the bog pots.'

The texture of the bog pots is very reminiscent of, actually, the ground

itself, and I try to recreate that by hand-carving into the clay.

Already her work is starting to appear in collections

as far afield as the USA, Canada and Germany.

We think that over the next year,

a lot of really exciting things are going to happen for her.

Last year was a roller-coaster for public-arts funding here,

with well-publicised cuts leaving certain parts of the sector

here wondering about their future.

But there is some good news, at least for three local

practitioners, who have each started off 2016

?15,000 better off.

They are the recipients of the Arts Council of Northern Ireland's

Major Individual artists award.

And with me to tell me more about these awards is Norin McKinney.

Norin, what are these awards?

Well, the awards are

probably the most significant accolade that the Arts Council

can offer for artistic achievement.

So, they're aimed at established, maybe mid-career artists,

who already have a significant body of work

and who are now ready to undertake another significant

step forward in their artistic development.

How are they selected? Do they apply for this? They apply, yes.

It's very competitive, of course,

and we can only make three to four per year.

And what do you expect in return?

In return, we expect that the proposal that they present to us

will be a significant step-change in both their skill sets

and a new piece of work which will then be presented to public

and critical acclaim.

Examples from the past have included Owen McCafferty

taking at least a year to write The Death Of A Comedian,

which premiered then in the Lyric,

Sinead Morrissey,

who had been shortlisted four times for the TS Eliot Prize

and then, in 2013, won it.

And Sinead would attest to the fact that the award gave

her the time just to be fully immersed in the creative process.

Other examples have been Glenn Patterson,

who wrote The Mill For Grinding Old People Young,

Lucy Caldwell, All The Beggars Riding,

and David Park's magnificent The Poets' Wives, which then all went on

to become the One City One Book choice for three consecutive years.

So, it's money well spent, do you feel? Completely well spent.

And it brings out some of the best work that's been created here.

Thank you, Norin. And now The Arts Show

can exclusively reveal who those winners are.

As they say, roll VT!

'I'm Deirdre McKay, and I'm a composer.'

Some of the music I write is quite spacious, slow...

..otherworldly, I guess, in a way.

I love harmony, I love colour.

Other times, completely different to that.

So, I suppose it depends on what you're writing for,

it depends on what the instruments are, it depends on what it's for.

Some previous works which are quite contrasting, I suppose -

Meltwater was written for strings, uses lots of natural harmonics.

You pick up very beautiful physical resonance in the instruments.

Dieppe, for voices...

very sparse and written in waves,

to be like the sea, actually.

TENOR SINGS

Driven, a very passionate piece, a quite emotional piece, as well,

for tenor and mixed ensemble.

# At last the end's in sight... #

'In its best moments, it's quite elating.'

With deadlines and things it can be very pressurised,

so it's not always like that.

I see the award primarily as being developmental,

to try stuff that I know I need to try.

'So the really exciting thing is that you are forced into taking

'risks that you might otherwise pull back from.'

And it's the risk-taking, developmental aspect which, I think,

is the most precious part of the award.

"I set up in general practice two years ago

"and had hoped that, by now, I would have built up a decent business.

"My training had been more than adequate

"and I think my manner, professional.

"Nevertheless, my anticipated patients clearly suffered

"chronic good health."

'My name's Jimmy McAleavey, and I write plays.

'I mostly write for stage.

'I also have written quite a bit for radio drama

'and a wee bit of TV and film.'

I write mostly for stage because...

formally it's the most expansive or elastic.

"Clasping a handkerchief to my face, I opened the door and

"approached what must have once been Van Helsing, slumped in an armchair.

"The wireless hissed static."

Radio is a beautiful form in itself.

It seems to be somewhere between the stage play and the screenplay.

'I would like to write more for screen,

'but, unfortunately, all we seem to watch are cop shows.'

And I don't have a cop show for you.

My most recent play was

Monsters Dinosaurs Ghosts at the Abbey Theatre.

It was about Republicans struggling with their consciences,

and it was about that terrible kind of existential spiral.

Someone once advised me to get to the desk before you arrive,

'so I decided to try and take that one step further,

'so I write in bed in the mornings.' LAUGHS

'As soon as I wake up.'

Writing is mostly about thinking about the structure of things

and how to do things. The fun bit is dialogue.

'But most of the work that goes into a play, for instance,

'is invisible, so it's about figuring out very knotty problems

'that are quite intangible.'

That bit there, that's pure craic. Y'know?

At the end of this year,

I hope to have repaid this public investment by writing

at least two large-scale plays

for which I'll have to develop certain new skills,

one set in America in a wagon train and another about a man

called Chief O'Neill, the man who, in real life, saved Irish music.

'I'm Conor Mitchell, and I am a composer.

I have one foot in several disciplines,

but my music is built to be seen, so I write for the stage -

so that's opera, music theatre -

and text, so all of my music has stories and words.

'Moving between those disciplines is difficult, because you're dealing

'with different audiences,

'and I think there are preconceived notions.'

But they all have one thing in common, which is that they

are slaves to the words and they're slaves to the stories.

'I'm going to use the award to take three pieces that had

'previously been written that have since grown in my imagination

'and make them much bigger.'

One is a symphony, another one is my Requiem For The Disappeared

and another one is a concerto.

But it's about me taking time out from being a slave to story

and words and opera and music theatre

and song cycles and song in general

and work with huge, epic forms.

'What fascinates me about music is the unspoken that can happen in it.'

But the mechanism of theatre, the audience, that's what I'm after,

and to take a break from that for a while

and come back to the pure form of music,

for me, will be really exciting, and that's what this grant is for me -

stripping away the froth of the cappuccino, I suppose,

and just getting stuck into the coffee.

So, congratulations to Conor Mitchell, Jimmy McAleavey

and Deirdre McKay. The best of luck to them.

Now, from one arts award to another.

18 months ago, we revealed the winner of a new crafts bursary,

the Rosie James Memorial Trust Award.

Applied artist Stuart Cairns was the first to receive

the bursary, also ?15,000,

which he has used to create his first solo show, Place And Process,

currently running at the R-Space Gallery here in Lisburn.

The Arts Show went for a look.

'My name's Stuart Cairns. I'm an applied artist,

'and I work with found objects and precious metals.'

I got the Rosie James Award last year,

and getting that has allowed me to develop a new body of work.

'The exhibition's called Process And Place.

'It represents a year's worth of research,

'exploring different aspects of my practice.'

So you have the installation down the middle, of the made objects

and found objects, which I call Driftline, and then on the walls

we have different photographs that I've taken over the year...

..and a big collection of drawings to sort of try

and convey some of the effort that goes into making the work

that runs down the centre of the show.

I describe my work as "alternative silversmithing",

so it's very sculptural and natural.

Just working with metal,

just working with one material, even, doesn't really excite me.

It's the combination of materials that kind of get me excited.

In some ways, the discarded what you might call "rubbish"

is more precious to me than the silver.

My inspiration really came from experiencing the landscape.

It's from being a kid

and having sort of come across the work of CS Lewis

and reading all his books

and seeing the landscape as this kind of wonderful,

magical place, and things that you might walk past normally

but actually, if you look, they're really

dramatically interesting, beautiful things.

I started using the camera sort of as a tool to help train my eye

and to try and tune myself in to what I was looking at,

because you're looking for an interesting shot.

Then, as you're looking for that interesting shot, you start

experiencing the environment in a lot more intense fashion,

and then that draws you to what you might pick up.

So, I'm collecting photographs

and images as well as collecting physical things.

When I was preparing this show,

I also got a set of work together for a show which

opens in March in the V in London with contemporary

British silversmiths, so that's quite exciting.

And I have a few plans to apply for some residencies,

so I'm going to do some more international work.

"Chapter one.

"'Do exactly as I tell you, or I'll put a bullet in your spine.'"

In 2016, I think we should be looking at Steve Cavanagh,

local man, crime writer,

taken on by one of the largest publishing houses in the UK.

"This guy wasn't going to shoot me in New York City on Chambers Street

"at 8.15 in the morning in front of 30 witnesses."

Steve's first novel, The Defence,

shot to international acclaim, featuring Eddie Flynn,

lawyer, con artist, a man in a very difficult situation.

Steve is a practising lawyer specialising in civil rights law.

He has taken some of that background and given it to Eddie,

though I dare say Eddie is a little bit less scrupulous than Steve.

Another writer we should keep our eyes on in Padraig Regan.

Padraig is a young poet from Belfast who recently won

the Eric Gregory Award.

Thank you.

Padraig will be publishing his first collection, Delicious,

published by The Lifeboat, in 2016.

I've selected Shaun Blaney, the actor, for two main reasons.

The first is the sheer range of work that he applies himself to,

whether it's experimental theatre work

with Replay Theatre in education, a comedy with Tinderbox...

I wouldn't say no reason.

Oh! You look great, by the way.

But perhaps most significantly recently,

his work in independent film and particularly the web drama Farr.

Going to shoot me, son?

If you make me.

It was very much his initiative

for which he won an acting award

and which has achieved other awards internationally.

Shaun's emblematic of that kind of entrepreneurial actor.

You can see Shaun having a sustainable career.

Don't.

Don't.

The local theatre scene taught me absolutely everything

I need to know or want to know about being a performer.

I didn't go to an accredited drama school,

but I just tried to learn on the job.

What was that like?

What was what like?

Losing.

And in 2016, going to make the move to London

and try that for a while.

We've really got to do more to nurture

and maintain the local talent that we have here.

I do hope Shaun comes back.

The artist I picked today is Stephen Johnston.

He graduated in 2010 from Belfast College of Art.

He has won the Hennessy Portrait Prize

and has been in the National Gallery of Ireland.

My work is inspired by all kinds of things.

It could be random objects that people have in their houses

that I think are really weird and cool and there's something about it.

He has shown in the Royal Ulster Academy since 2011.

This year, it was the Melody of Memories.

I just love the dexterity, the integrity of the work.

I wanted to capture

an element of that kind of tension between the past

and the present and something so run down

that there can be something so beautiful that comes from it.

That life kind of grows, like the ivy coming through the window.

Looking at his other works,

Bird Man I, Bird Man II, Bird Man III really is an emerging man

facing the world. What way does he go?

Some things really excite me and I want to paint

and experiment with and focus on and see where that leads.

It'll be interesting to see how his work develops.

We just hope that he will continue on this path of discovery.

Only 28 years of age - the world's his oyster.

Well, that's almost it from The Art Show for this month.

I'm on Twitter now and you can keep up-to-date with all arts coverage

on BBC Radio Ulster's The Arts Show, Tuesdays to Fridays at 18.30.

We leave you, though, with some live music.

Derry band Little Bear were making waves

until they were forced to change their name because of legal reasons.

They've rebranded as Ports and their new album,

The Devil Is A Songbird is released in May.

They're on tour, they're going to be playing in the Oh Yeah Centre

as part of the Out to Lunch Festival this Saturday 30th January.

We leave you, though, with their new single, Gameplay.

This is Ports. Goodnight.

# I know you

# Like the back of my hand

# Don't be foolish

# Slither

# To the end of my bed

# It's just the two of us

# Come down like snow and melt into my lips

# You're like a blizzard

# I understand

# It's just gameplay

# I can't pretend

# When I feel this way

# I notice

# Everything you said was true

# Help me deliver

# I shiver

# To the darkest side of you

# Pull me closer

# Come down like rain and seep into my skin

# Put out the fire

# I understand

# It's just gameplay

# I can't pretend

# When I feel this way

# I understand

# It's just gameplay

# I can't pretend

# When I feel this way

# Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

# Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

# Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

# Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. #