I did something this weekend that I’ve never done before….so now so, how many of ye can say that?
As you may or may not already know, Le Cool Dublin launched recently. An online magazine, which publishes itself into your email every Thursday full of all the events you can look forward to in Dublin, Le Cool Dublin is part of a wider European family of Le Cool websites. However, the Dublin site has decided to diversify a little bit and now, instead of just winging a newsletter to their subscribers once a week, Le Cool are bringing you to the streets, or the streets to you….ok you and the streets together.
After sponsoring them the meagre amount of €15 on Fundit.ie (it’s a recession ok……I had to save for flights to Oz), I was granted a free pass to their first walking tour yesterday. To be honest I hadn’t a clue what to expect and arrived along with little expectation.
Sites taken in along the walk included David Foran’s exhibition at Clyne Gallery; a trip to the Redress pop up shop in the Powerscourt Centre as part of Dublin Better Fashion Week, one of Dublin’s oldest barbers – The Waldorf on Westmoreland St where we got a great introduction to the barber tradition along with a sneak peek into their back room where there’s an array of old barber tools and hairdryers; Adair Lane (it runs parallel to Fleet St, Quay side) where there’s a really weird exhibition of placards to Irish pop culture icons like Gay Byrne and the showbands among many others; and a trip to “closing today” pop up restaurant Crack Bird on Crane Lane.
My favourite stop along the way was the Project Arts Centre where Eleanor from Dublin Dance Festival spoke to us about the festival and in particular about the piece of work currently being staged in the Project by Balbir Singh – Decreasing Infinity (video below but musicians are different). The piece is a meeting point between modern dance form and traditional Kathak dancing which originates in Northern India. The piece is also accompanied by a tabla player and a very cool human beat boxer. After Eleanor’s introduction, we were allowed to watch the performers rehearsing and they also gave a quick Q&A session after. Click here to find out more about booking yourself in to attend the show today or tomorrow.
In all the tour was really different, not touristy at all and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who loves discovering new things in Dublin, and instead of flicking through an events guide would like to get out on the street and get introduced to new venues and events. I’d even recommend it to tourists as the first thing for them to do when they land in Dublin if they don’t want to do the general run of the mill touristy stuff.
In all, a fun and cheap thing to do with your Saturday afternoon, click here for more info on “booking your boots in”: Le Cool Dublin Walking Tours.
First off all is the very sad news of the passing on Ken Monaghan. Ken was the last surviving nephew of James Joyce and was a true Joycean. He was a founding member of the James Joyce Centre and built it up to become internationally recognised as a centre in Dublin City for all things Joycean, it also became the home of Bloomsday in Dublin.
Far better than what the initial plan sounded like, this exploratory piece of theatre explores our everyday interpretation of all that happens around us, as well as our remembering or recreation of things past and imagination of things to come. The four actors become bloomalikes, wandering around Dublin city, sampling the food and getting into arguments about the burial of Paddy Dignam (four times over!).
Hopefully The Company will be back again soon with something different from what everyone else is doing – just like they did tonight.
