Bealtaine Gathering 2023

 

The Bealtaine Gathering 2023 Tickets for this year's much anticipated Bealtaine Gathering are now available! Taking place on 15th November at the National Gallery of Ireland, The Gathering is a day of networking, engaging discussions, and valuable feedback on next year's Bealtaine 2024. It brings together local and national partners, organisers, artists, and individuals passionate about working with older people.  Topics and speakers Introduction by Dr. Tara Byrne, Arts Programme Manager and Bealtaine Festival Artistic Director, Age & Opportunity Keynote speaker, Conny Groot, Director of Culture Generation Foundation and Schaduwhelden, Netherlands. Case studies on Building Temporary Communities, Katy Hewison, Dance Limerick; Emerging Artist Creators by Richie Keane, Fatima Groups United; and The Power of the Collective by Catherine Marshall, Na Cailleacha. Considering the New: Circus for Older People, by Lucy Medleycott, ISAACS. Focus groups discussion and feedback. Launch of Creative Enquiry Report & performance Artist panel: Diversity in our work - how can we avoid tokenism? Chaired by writer, activist and educator Oein DeBhairduin and featuring Carmel McKenna, Reels on Wheels, Han Tiernan, Unshrinking Violets (Bealtaine 2023) and Kevin O'Shanahan, Music Alive speaking about the Creative Enquiry project, Cork. Closing thoughts from Laurence McKeown, writer and recipient of the 2023 Age & Opportunity Creative Ageing Writing Award A light lunch will be provided as part of your ticket. Buy Tickets Here Upcoming Opportunities Bealtaine Touring & Bealtaine Flagship Choir Awards Bealtaine Touring Award 2024 We invite applications from performing artists and producers for an award for work, which will tour, during May 2024, as part of the Bealtaine Festival. We are eager to engage with artists in a new way by making them aware that the festival is open to new collaborations. We are also eager to receive applications for work that is radical, challenging, humorous or offbeat.  Bealtaine Flagship Choir 2024 We invite applications from choirs to fill the role of Bealtaine Festival Flagship Choir for the Dawn/ Dusk Chorus events in 2024. For these flagship events the Bealtaine Festival wishes to showcase a choir that celebrates the Bealtaine spirit in some way – it may be that they are intergenerational, diverse in their membership,  that they are championing creativity as we age or that they have been staging their own Dawn Chorus events for the past number of years.  Deadline for applications is 5pm Monday 20th November, 2023. We particularly encourage members of marginalised or underrepresented groups to apply for all open calls.  Apply Now Webinar: Challenges Faced as an Older Artist Meeting Challenges and Maintaining Community Age & Opportunity Arts, together with the Royal Hibernian Academy and Visual Artists Ireland, welcome you to a special online artists’ professional development event on Wednesday, November 1st at 3pm.  The event aims to explore various challenges (family responsibilities etc) that might arise in your practice as you progress in your career and how to maintain connections and strategies. It will open with a short presentation on Creative Lives, a recent UK report addressing ageism in the arts. Speakers Leah Hilliard, Watership Project. Anoushta Schooramum, Angelica Network. Dr. Joe Atkinson, University of Sheffield - Author 'Creative Lives: Dismantling Ageism in the Professional Art World'. Keep an eye on our socials for the upcoming schedule announcement! Register Now Invitation to Tender:  Arts, Disability and Older Person Training Review Age & Opportunity and Arts & Disability Ireland are seeking tenders from suitably qualified individuals or organisations to carry out an Arts, Disability and Older Person training review as part of its joint Access initiative. Age & Opportunity and Arts & Disability Ireland have been working together for a number of years to generate information on older audiences and those with disabilities. Part of our work involves developing training supports for arts organisations wishing to work with older people. As a first step in delivering these supports, we wish to ascertain what key arts, disability and older people training supports currently exist in Ireland and more particularly, further afield. This work will feed into and support the rolling out of Age & Opportunity’s Arts & Creative Charter for Older People.   Apply here Artists Care Exchange Training Opportunity Update We were delighted to recently host this year's ACE participants at Marino Institute of Education for an in-person session of the Artists Care Exchange 2023. During the session, participants shared work from their own practice, including how the harp and contemporary dance can work in health and care contexts. Later, guest speakers shared case studies on particularly successful projects including Stories from the Well-Field, a collaborative project which was part of the West Cork Arts for Health Programme. This session provided the artists with an opportunity to connect face-to-face, exchange creative ideas, and experience the peer-support that the ACE programme wishes to foster. 'Experience 2023: An Introduction to  Arts, Health and the Older Person' 'Experience 2023: An Introduction to Arts, Health and the Older Person' takes place on Thursday, 7th December at the Centre for Arts + Health, University Hospital Waterford. This is the first time that Experience will take place in person, having been an online learning event for the last two years. Further details and booking information will follow in due course on www.ageandopportunity.ie and www.realta.ie Read More Register Your Interest Arts Events Listings Find and list events on the Bealtaine website Are you a venue that hosts age-friendly and accessible arts events? Did you know you can advertise on our National Arts Events Listings database? The Arts Events Listings is a national listing of arts events welcoming to older people taking place throughout the year. It was inspired by Bealtaine Festival participants asking if it were possible to promote or attend events which happen outside of the festival month of May and by GPs and Social Prescribers looking for events to which they can refer their clients. Organisations and individuals can sign up and register their events on the Bealtaine website so that people can check out what’s happening around Ireland between June and April. Browse the Listings Here Add Your Own Events Here