Tweaking The Tradition

By Gwen Orel

Friday morning, fiddler Martin Hayes judged the final performance of the Sean O Riada Gold Medal live on RnaG at the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork.

Except he was in Manhattan. The finalists performed in Cork, the two other judges were in Cork, and Hayes put on a pair of headphones and sat at a workstation at the Irish Arts Center on the West Side and interacted on skype.

The blend of old tradition and cutting edge technology epitomizes Culture Ireland's Imagine Ireland 2011 program, which launched Friday morning, and accounted for Hayes being in Manhattan. The €4 million ($5.2 million) investment by the Irish Government, which will present and promoting Irish art in America, was introduced with a short video including excerpts from Irish literature read by Colin Farrell, Liam Neeson, Byrne and others.

The video can be seen on youtube also (see www.imagineireland.ie). But there was old-fashioned liveness there too-live speeches from important people: Culture Ireland's CEO Eugene Downes, Speaker of the New York City Council, Christine Quinn, Minister of Culture Mary Hanafin, Cultural Ambassador Gabriel Byrne, National Book Award winner Colum McCann.

And then tradition again, as the event concluded with a live performance from Hayes and others who appeared that night in a showcase cosponsored by Culture Ireland and the Iriah Arts Center.

In the room were not only international journalists but also the delegates Culture Ireland had brought to the 2011 Association of Performing Arts Presenters and to the Under the Radar Festival.

Imagine Ireland will bring over 300 events to 42 states, including an opera of The Importance of Being Earnest by Gerald Barry at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, tours by The Coronas, Paddy Moloney and the Chieftains and others, an Enda Walsh Festival in Washington, D.C., a film retrospective at MOMA curated by Byrne, two Irish films at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, dance including Rex Levitates at the Baryshnikov Arts Center and literary events across the country. There will be programs in major cities, including New York, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia

There will be a lot to say about Imagine Ireland in the coming year-and as several of the speakers mentioned Friday morning, it's heartening to see this investment in culture at a time when other news in Ireland is less than stellar.

But first, let's look at some of what happened in APAP.

Following the launch on Friday, I attended a plenary session on Cultural Diplomacy that included Ann Stock, Assistant secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State; Catherine St.-Pierre, Culture Minister of Quebec, and Eugene Downes, CEO, Culture Ireland.

I wasn't able to stay for all of it because I was already set to see another performance, but what I did see was enlightening.

This panel too was livecase and tweeted. Both Stock and St.-Pierre were inspiring and earnest. Stock spoke of using culture as a way of achieving foreign policy goals, about how everyone in the room was a cultural diplomat.

A program called CenterStage brings performing arts groups in for a month to heighten real cultural interaction and create trust.

St.-Pierre first described Quebec's extraordinary cultural relevance in Canada-more than 1/2 of Candian artists performing abroad hail from there, although it's only 1/4 of the Canadian population. She too talked about residency exchanges and cultural education.

But when Downes spoke, his modest description of the history of Culture Ireland, which is just five years old, provided a real "aha" moment. Culture Ireland is not a subset of the State Department or anything like it. Since Cultural Diplomacy isn't its aim, it focuses really on the artists themselves.

They don't fund education, sports, environmental programs. They work with embassies, but don't report to them.

At first glance, it makes sense for any cultural program to include education - but only at first glance. As anyone who's ever worked at an arts organization can testify, it's easy to get funding for educational programs. But that's not the same as funding the artistic programs at the organization. In 2007, the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey (the state Theatre of New Jersey) nearly closed its doors. But its educational programs were still well-funded.

The shameful secret at many arts organizations is that their educational programs exist in large part to get and keep funding. That's not to say that they aren't worthwhile and the organizations aren't proud of them. But when education is under that umbrella, art that doesn't include that component has a hard, hard time.

This is not to criticize Ann Stock-certainly I'd love to see more international cultural exchange. I just would also love to see a U.S. program that put its focus completely on the arts and artists.

Listening to Downes, it also clicked for me why it seems to me that artists have an easier time interacting with Culture Ireland than American artists would with Arts Councils here. It seems that way, because it's true.

Culture Ireland has one funding scheme, with set deadlines four times a year. Producers, artists, organizations, all use the same application, regardless of the project. They don't use monies to bring foreign artists to Ireland (though they do bring producers and press).

I first became aware of Culture Ireland in 2008, when I wrote about the inaugural season of the 1st Irish Festival for the New York Times. I was impressed by how it seemed that George C. Heslin, founder of the Festival and Artistic Director of Origin Theatre Company, was able to gain quick approvals from funding bodies (which also included the Northern Ireland Bureau and the Irish Arts Council), and the paperwork came later. I don't think I was entirely wrong, if the sociability and optimism at APAP are anything to go by.

It's not just that Ireland is a small country where people can know each other that makes this true - after all, there are small states in the U.S. It's also a question of attitude. Culture Ireland's tight focus means that administrators don't drive artists.

Downes said as much. It makes an enormous difference. This may also be why the somewhat grandiose title Cultural Ambassador doesn't phase Byrne - who told me that if there were some implication of politics in it he would step down.

Culture Ireland brought 11 programs to APAP and Under the Radar. I managed to catch four this weekend, and will see two more in the coming weeks. I spent much of my time in the company of playwrights Conal Creedon and Fiona O'Toole, whom I recently saw on a visit to Ireland.

They were representing their company Irishtown Productions. It was a particular pleasure to meet up with Irish artists who were here not to perform in a show but as delegates to the conference.

Overheard at the reception at Consul General Noel Kilkenny's residence: "I only see you in New York!" It's a smart choice in the end, because it means that the artists network with one another and with American producers and journalists.

It was nice to spend time with Kabosh theatre's Paula McFetridge, Fishamble's Jim Culleton, Benbo Productions' Donal O'Kelly, Tall Tales Theatre Company's Deirdre Kinahan, BallyO Promotions' Tracy Crawford, Ceol Productions Oisín Mac Diarmada, Fidil's Pat McGill and IrishMusic.Net's Caiomhin O'Raghallaigh, among others.

I had to leave the Cultural Diplomacy Plenary early because I had booked to see Gare St. Lazare Players Ireland perform Samuel Beckett's The End. Conor Lovett is simply peerless when it comes to interpreting Beckett. He seems not to be performing at all, but experiencing and talking.

This story of a homeless man manages to be both funny, pathetic, sad and enlightening. It's also very funny. Lovett's mannerisms and thoughtful delivery are hard to describe, but hard to forget. One can only hope that the company brings back the work for a real open run very soon.

The Masters of Tradition showcase Saturday night brought some of the best Irish traditional musicians to the Kaufman Center: Sean Nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, piper David Power, fiddler Martin Hayes, guitarist Dennis Cahill, and fiddler Cathal Hayden, accordionist Máirtín O'Connor, and guitar player Seamie O'Dowd.

Downes introduced the event to the invited audience by describing hearing the beautiful lonesome sound of the pipes in the Opera House in Sydney, where the musicians had performed a concert based on the "Masters of Tradition" Festival at Banry House, West County Cork, Ireland, and realizing they had to bring this here. Hayes serves as the Artistic Director of the Masters of Tradition Festival, and selected the program, telling the audience that he brought in people "able to unearth the soul of this music."

The event began with the pure, haunting sound of Ó Lionáird, followed by a stirring lament from Power. Hayes and Ó Lionáird then joined him, and it really demonstrated how the droning pipe, soulful voice and delicate fiddle could blend together as if they came from the same source.

Hayes and Power then played together, followed by Hayes and Cahill, who watch each other so closely for each move it almost feels intrusive to see them - except you can't tear your eyes away.

Hayes and Cahill return to New York on March 5, to Symphony Space, at an event sponsored by the World Music Institute. The two are working on new tunes, so mark the calendar now.

Gradually slow, baroque tunes grew faster and exciting until the audience was on its feet. It was a hard act to follow, but Hayden, O'Connor and O'Dowd did just that-brilliantly. They were like the Session band you hope to hear in Heaven-bright, virtuosic, infectious. And finally everyone came back and played together - Ó Lionáird returned for a gorgeous version of the Jacobite anthem "Mo Gile Mear," then the instrumentalists played one more.

Sunday everyone converged at the Residence, including many local Irish artists and others bringing work over. Fiach MacComnhaill from the abbey, whose John Gabriel Borkman is in previews now at BAM, was there, as well as singer Susan McKeown, agent Anita Daly, Irish Repertory Theatre's Ciaran O'Reilly and Charlotte Moore, the Irish Voice's Paul Keating and many others.

Many of the theatre delegates attended the staged reading of Fallen Angel's Chaste Eva at the Irish American Histocial Society Sunday evening.

Aedin Moloney is a sensitive, expressive performer, in Barbara Hammond's play about an Irish emigrant returning home to care for a sick mother.

The Irish group Danú had a performance at the Hilton (the APAP home) at 9:45, so I rushed over there, before heading down to the 11th street Bar to catch a late night session. This session doesn't begin until 11pm on Sunday nights. Run by fiddler Tony DeMarco, it always attracts professionals, but on an ordinary Sunday performers from Battlefield Band, Danú, fiddler Alasdair Fraser and Newgrass star Chris Thile from Nickel Creek don't happen to be in town. Last night they were. The connections were wonderful to behold.

And as the music got hotter and more exciting, the pinprick lights of cell phone cameras could be seen around the room. I'll be looking for some of the video on youtube and facebook tomorrow. That's the new tradition.