Tales of Two Cities: a trip to Cork Midsummer
26 June 2024
this time last week I was in Cork, admiring the bright 10pm skies. was bopped off to the Midsummer Festival on a cultural exchange between MAYK & the festival team in Cork.
a grand tour. accompanied by DJ, producer & promoter Marley Small (Medis), poet Aish Humphreys & Matthew Austin (of MAYK), i saw shows in swimming pools
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in old gilt cinemas, in private booths on public squares.
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& drank beamish, & stared at the skies.
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tasty diversity of mediums n such in the programme: a roving installation (a 196kg rope requiring eleven people to carry it), durational singing and moving from parents w/ their babies, a radio station for the solstice, a collection of krazy ping pong tables, a nightime show in the woods.
ate up lots of stuff, but especially Good Sex from Dead Centre. love their stuff & only seen 1 of their shows live, this one fckn slapped. tender, layered, operating in 3x different worlds simultaneously, frictionlessly - until there needed to be friction. the generosity of allowing in us voyeurs, then a latent gift of privacy. pretty devastating as well as pretty continously funny. wild. great. more.
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stray observations:
- heard so many people singing to themselves while working hospitality/service shifts/driving cabs, keeping their time for themselves somehow. i want this!
- Cork is the Bristol of Ireland
- impressive local licencing/vacant property/local council knowledge from the Cork artists on the scheme (nothin but respect)
- didn’t love everything i saw, but got ~something~ from everything i saw - which is not always the case
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a grand tour. accompanied by DJ, producer & promoter Marley Small (Medis), poet Aish Humphreys & Matthew Austin (of MAYK), i saw shows in swimming pools
in old gilt cinemas, in private booths on public squares.
& drank beamish, & stared at the skies.
tasty diversity of mediums n such in the programme: a roving installation (a 196kg rope requiring eleven people to carry it), durational singing and moving from parents w/ their babies, a radio station for the solstice, a collection of krazy ping pong tables, a nightime show in the woods.
ate up lots of stuff, but especially Good Sex from Dead Centre. love their stuff & only seen 1 of their shows live, this one fckn slapped. tender, layered, operating in 3x different worlds simultaneously, frictionlessly - until there needed to be friction. the generosity of allowing in us voyeurs, then a latent gift of privacy. pretty devastating as well as pretty continously funny. wild. great. more.
stray observations:
- heard so many people singing to themselves while working hospitality/service shifts/driving cabs, keeping their time for themselves somehow. i want this!
- Cork is the Bristol of Ireland
- impressive local licencing/vacant property/local council knowledge from the Cork artists on the scheme (nothin but respect)
- didn’t love everything i saw, but got ~something~ from everything i saw - which is not always the case
signs & wonders
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