This weekend is particularly frontloaded with Friday treats, rounded off with a night at the opera, and it’s not all raves like last time around.
It’s All Around Us: Music & Media Technology Exhibition
Friday 9 May | Samuel Beckett Theatre, Trinity College Dublin | 7.30pm, €10
Music and Media Technologies’ end of year exhibition always contain an eclectic mix of contemporary compositions and out-there tech projects from a collection of frazzled and exhausted but super-creative Masters students. This years crop’s show is called It’s All Around Us. See mmtshow.com for more information.
The Wind Rises
Opens Friday 9 May | Irish Film Institute
A new release from legendary Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli that is the last release from studio head Hayao Miyazaki who is now retiring. Our review in this month’s Totally Dublin described it as their “most mature work, and certainly its most profound.” It begins screening on Friday. More info here.
Richard Dawson w/ Clang Sayne
Friday 9 May | Bello Bar | 8pm, €12
Newcastle’s Richard Dawson returns to Ireland with an intimate gig in new surroundings, in the Bello Bar. A reincarnation of the space below the Lower Deck in Portobello, Bello Bar has been kitted out and gussied up and should make an excellent setting for Dawson’s idiosyncratic, *Wire* magazine approved brand of folk. A commanding performer, Dawson’s music channels both classic artists like John Martyn and outsiders like Robert Wyatt to create something intense and unique. Support comes from Clang Sayne, whose detuned bucolia TD first caught in Molloy & Downling Opticians supporting Le Ton Mité – also very much worth catching.
We Cut Corners
Friday 9 May | The Button Factory | 7.30pm, €15
We Cut Corners have commenced a nationwide tour in support of their new album, with this gig bringing them home ahead of a short sojourn to Dundalk on 20 May. Think Nothing, as album number two is called, was greedily received by fans and critics left tantalised by the band’s too-brief 2011 debut. With hits culled from two great albums, WCC’s set in the Button Factory promises to be a belter. You can buy tickets here or read our interview with the lads right here.
The Luxury Gap
Running til June 2 | The Haçienda | 8pm til close
This sit-specific exhibition curated by Pádraic E. Moore opened last Friday evening to little fanfare and runs throughout the month in the Haçienda on Little Green Street. and features the work of artists Jonathan Mayhew, Lucy Stein, Andrew Vickery and Marcel Vidal. The Luxury Gap features pieces from artists both of international acclaim and up-and-coming Dubliners and is about abundance, excess and luxury and how luxury is, in some ways, necessary to survival, even though it’s not supposed to be. It’s in the Hacienda – which aside from being a great drinking spot, means you have to seek out the works from between all the random kitsch (Imelda May portraits, “Torso of the Week” cut outs, glowing Tutankhamuns, that photo of Matthew McConaughey), making it a kind of art treasure hunt.
Nixon In China
Sunday 11 May | Bord Gáis Energy Theatre | 7pm, From €15
Wide Open Opera’s gigantic presentation (200+ people in the crew) of minimalist composer John Adam’s celebrated 1972 opera Nixon In China, includes contributions from celebrated choreography team Junk Ensemble, Irish singers Claudia Boyle and John Molloy, and the original Vancouver Opera director Michael Cavanagh. There are only three performances of this spectacular starting this Sunday, with performances on Wednesday 14 May and Saturday 17 May, Tickets start at an extremely reasonable €15 for this unusual event.
