As the Dublin Fringe Festival celebrates 30 years this year, the event kicking off this weekend promises to be filled with plenty of colour and musical performances.
The Fringe will run for two weeks and its programme contains over 500 performances taking place in more than 25 venues.
The shows are wide ranging, and the organisers say that the festival this year aims to be a full blown celebration of contemporary life.
Over the years, the festival has grown its mission to be a place where artists make their mark.
Often, Dublin Fringe performers are at the start of their careers, but for others, the festival offers a place to return and show their development.
“Dublin Fringe Festival is all about breaking the mould as it’s a playground for artists to experiment, push boundaries and defy expectations,” David Francis Moore, the director of this year’s festival told RTÉ News.
It has been 30 years since Bedrock Productions, with some support from the established Dublin Theatre Festival and Arts office of Dublin City Council, created a revived Dublin Fringe Festival, to promote and showcase the work of small and vibrant theatre companies and theatre makers.
In the first year, Conor McPherson’s This Lime Tree Bower premiered, and in 1996, Enda Walsh’s Disco Pigs took off from The International Bar. Since then, the festival has grown and flourished.
The platform the festival offers is noted by emerging artists, and one of the new shows for 2024 that is planning to make a mark, is An Evening with wee Daniel, created by and featuring Aoife Sweeney O’Connor.
The show which tells a story about a journey about figuring out issues around identity and place but with an unexpected twist.
Growing up in Donegal, Ms Sweeney O’Connor tells a story with the show that celebrates queerness, along with an obsession with wee Daniel.
On stage Ms Sweeney O’Connor wears one of Mr O’Donnell’s former suits, and off stage, Aoife said how she met Daniel O’Donnell and told him all about the show and that he gave his blessing.
The artist describes it as a “rapturous love letter to the rural queer non -binary experience, and to mammies and Daniel!’
Comedy has always been a popular part of the programme and this year attendees can choose to watch comic productions such as visiting A Good Room from Cian Jordan and Allie O’Rourke.
The idea of this show is that the pair are running out of space and time to get this show on. Where can they stage it, they ask, eventually coming up with the idea of Cian’s bedroom. This is an interactive comedy about friendship, space and most of all home.
Also joining the comedy line up for this year’s Fringe is comedian David O’Doherty at the Projecy Arts Centre. Other familiar comedy voices on the line up include Julie Jay and Shane Daniel Byrne.
For music lovers, Irish -Palestinian artist Róisín El Cherif will be performing at the Project Arts Centre delivering a performance that fuses Arabic and Irish musical traditions.
The show is described as unique as it brings together, original music, poetry, and film to tell her story.
Another significant show in the festival programme is contemporary dance show Hyper physical, which is described as a “high-octane double dance bill”.
This piece is presented by the Irish Modern Dance Theatre and features the work of the US choreographer Abby Zbikowski and acclaimed choreographer John Scott with his Irish Modern Dance Theatre company.
The 30th Fringe Festival kicks off today and runs until 22 September.
