THISISPOPBABY with St Patrick’s Festival
present
WHERE WE LIVE 2020
Stories from the city told in the heart of town

10 DAYS / 22 EVENTS / 80+ ARTISTS / 11-21 MARCH 2020


FURTHER INFO at thisispopbaby.com

THISISPOPBABY today announce the second edition of WHERE WE LIVE arts festival, a thrilling takeover and transformation of Project Arts Centre in the heart of Dublin city from 11-21 March. With 22 shows and events from some of the best storytellers and makers on the Island, this festival-within-a-festival interrogates and celebrates what it means, and how it feels, to live in Dublin and Ireland today.

Sitting within the internationally-renowned St. Patrick’s Festival, WHERE WE LIVE is made up of red-hot theatre, exhilarating music collaborations, rapid-response performance, playful and evocative visual art installations, an iconic one-off record fair, dangerous ideas and opposing views… with a little bit of dancing to top it all off.

Featuring new work from: THISISPOPBABY, MALAPROP, Wayne Jordan with Alma Kelliher, Thommas Kane Byrne, Veronica Dyas & Complex Roots, Peter Maybury, Janet Moran & Federico Juliàn Gonzàlez, Tara Brandel & Nicholas Nwosu, Fionnuala Gygax, Rosaleen Mc Donagh, Felispeaks, Dagogo Hart & Samuel Yakura, and more to be announced.

With very special events: Crash Ensemble & Mango x MathMan join forces in Zero Zero; Emma Dabiri and Willie White host an incendiary Town Hall Session; Peter Maybury brings to life his stunning exhibition in Landfall Live; DJ legend Tonie Walsh sells all his records in a once in a lifetime pop-up art market; and the Club Chroma installation is plucked from IMMA and Popbabied-Up for the closing night party.

Led by stories from the margins and told by some of the freshest artistic voices Ireland has to offer, WHERE WE LIVE reflects the changes, celebrates the differences and shines a light in the dark corners of this place we call home. This year’s festival explores ideas around occupation, assimilation and community-making, with stories inspired by the evolving city, homelessness, gender, migration, connection, inclusivity, the climate crisis, nightlife culture and the power of active citizenship.

Building on the legacy of the inaugural WHERE WE LIVE (2018), this year’s edition continues to tell urgent stories that galvanise diverse communities and engender positive change. Since 2018 two of the theatre pieces (Not A Funny Word & The Mouth of A Shark) have successfully toured; a work-in-progress (Sure Look It, Fuck It) enjoyed a sold out full production at Project Arts Centre last March with an upcoming tour on the cards; short pieces that premiered at WERKHouse have gone on to become award-winning full productions (Caged, OverFired). Most impressively, the multi-media exhibition Made In Dublin has grown into a larger-scale exhibition with acclaimed outings in London and Madrid, and has also been turned into a stunning art book published by Hudson and Thames.

THISISPOPBABY Co-Directors Jenny Jennings & Phillip McMahon elaborate: “This year we bring together over 80 incredible artists in an even deeper investigation of the world around us today. The festival is passionate about fairness, about inclusivity and about the power of stories to provoke conversation, to foster connection, to make us pause, rethink, reframe.... and have a great night out in the process. It’s exciting to be able to bring these conversations to a national and international stage as part of the St. Patrick's Festival programme, where we collectively imagine and re-imagine what our city and country could be.”

Artistic Director of St Patrick’s Festival, Karen Walshe says: ’We are thrilled to have theatre company THISISPOPBABY return for their second iteration of Where We Live, as it now has a special and important place within St. Patrick’s Festival, illuminating modern-day narratives through compelling, formidable and sizzling storytelling. This year’s programme is just as exciting as the first, and I would encourage everyone to immerse themselves in this extraordinary schedule of work that is exhilarating and challenging, hilarious and tragic, and that explores the textures of life in the city and country today.’’

WHERE WE LIVE is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland and Dublin City Council.

St. Patrick’s Festival’s principal funders are Fáilte Ireland - the National Tourism Development Authority, Dublin City Council, the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht and the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. For more information see stpatricksfestival.ie

LINKS:
Twitter: @THISISPOPBABY | Facebook: /THISISPOPBABY | Instagram: @THISISPOPBABY
Twitter: @stpatricksfest | Facebook: /StPatricksFestivalIreland | Instagram: @stpatricksfestival

PROGRAMME OVERVIEW:
SHIT
By Patricia Cornelius.
Directed by Jennifer Jennings, composed by Oberman Knocks & movement direction by Philip Connaughton.
THEATRE
Out of control girls. Angry girls. Nasty girls. They are a sight to behold. Terrifying, electrifying, funny and awful, they’re everything women shouldn’t be, and we hate them.

Mean, foul-mouthed, downtrodden, hard-bitten and utterly damaged, they believe believe the world is shit, that their lives are shit, that they are shit.

Now in a new Irish production from THISISPOPBABY, this multi-award winning play is a compelling, raw, powerful and timely treatise on class, misogyny and poverty.
Wednesday 11 – Saturday 14 March – [5 shows] (preview 11 March)

HOTHOUSE
by MALAPROP Theatre
Written by Dylan Coburn Gray with MALAPROP.
THEATRE
We're born dying. Hooray? It was true before climate breakdown, but now our grandchildren won't even remember us fondly. This play is about what we do instead of facing that spooky thought. It's about cruiseships, horny songbirds, parents, love, legacy, horny rabbits, Minnie Riperton, and whether things ever get better.
Wednesday 18 - Saturday 21 – [5 shows] (preview 18 March)

Leaving
Written & Directed by Wayne Jordan with original music from Alma Kelliher
LIVE ART
In 2017, acclaimed theatre director Wayne Jordan left Dublin and stopped directing theatre (mostly).
Dublin was a city that was trying to buck him off like a bull at a rodeo, a beast gone wild, shoving and kicking and biting at him till finally he let go of her tail and then something began. Something that will return with him. Home.
Sunday 15 March – [2 shows]

Mrs Macushla: The Story of Kelly’s Eye
Written by Thommas Kane Byrne [TKB] / Directed by Ronan Phelan
THEATRE
Gertrude Kelly was given one true purpose in life, bingo caller at the Macushla Ballroom. When she’s up there? She’s untouchable. As this immersive, (melo)dramatic game of bingo progresses, Gert’s story begins to fray.
An in-development showing of a new play from Thommas Kane Byrne, directed by Ronan Phelan.
Friday 20 &- Saturday 21 March – [2 shows]

OFF PLAN WORK-IN-PROGRESS SERIES:
Off Plan is a red-hot artistic response around community-making in Ireland today. In a series of work-in-progress double bills, we get a first look at sparks of incendiary ideas around the changing city, gender, migration, direct provision and aging.
>>
Off Plan - The Last Adult Children of the Good Old Stock
Created by The Complex Roots Women’s Drama Group led by Veronica Dyas
THEATRE
D’you know who the Tuggers were? D’you know what a Cheeky Charlie is? D’you know where Corporation Buildings were?
This is Dublin’s North Inner City recounted by the Women who are actually from there. Really now, they’re not pretending. There’ll be leaps of theatrical magic, a lot of talking and oh yeah, making stew.
Friday 13 March

Off Plan – Remember This Night
Fionnuala Gygax
It is the final night. Tomorrow we will be no more. The lights will go dark and nobody will be there to clap.
So let’s come together.
Let’s talk about things, ask questions, write letters and put them in a bottle. Lets dance together.
What is our legacy?
What are we leaving behind?

Remember This Night is a live communal time capsule between a performer, a guest, a musician and the audience.
Friday 13 March

Off Plan - Looking for America
By Federico Julian Gonzalez & Janet Moran
THEATRE
Last summer, Fede and his 74-year-old mother set off on a quest through Havana to look for America. Intuition, memories and strangers guided them through the city that had given them sanctuary 30 years before. They spoke to Havanians and they spoke to each other. They almost gave up. Then they found her. Sometimes the idea of home has to be remade.
Saturday 14 March

Off Plan - Tilt
By Tara Brandel and Nicholas Nwosu (Cork)
Tara Brandel (52 year old queer choreographer, pole dancer and contemporary dancer from West Cork), and Nicholas Nwosu (28 year old street dancer extraordinaire from Nigeria) join forces. Juxtaposing their very diverse experiences, skills and ages, Nicholas and Tara play with being off balance - using it as a metaphor for instability and change in a shifting world.
Saturday 14 March

Off Plan – Contentious Spaces
Rosaleen McDonagh
THEATRE
Bella and her wheelchair are forever hiding in toilets. She can’t cope with the busy world around her. Michael is a young trans man on a journey of change. He finds himself needing time out from the bustle of the city too. Today they both take refuge in the same bathroom. The space is tight, but neither is willing to leave. They are trapped by their stubbornness and the prejudice that awaits them both outside. A fierce dialogue ensues about who has the right to use what bathroom, about privilege and pain, history and politics, identity and loss - about how we treat each other. The challenge for Bella and Michael is not to listen or hear, but to shift into someone else’s space in order to understand.
Thursday 19 March

Off Plan - Deities
WeAreGriot featuring Felispeaks, Dagogo Hart & Samuel Yakura
THEATRE
Felispeaks, Dagogo Hart & Samuel Yakura join forces as WeAreGriot to present a first glimpse of their new spoken word theatre piece.
Inspired by our Nigerian roots and knowledge of our mythologies and traditional religions, Deities portrays the humanity of gods, the hubris of man and the threads that connect them all. Deities seeks to bring a part of our home to another part of our home - and to remind us of how human and godly we all are.
Thursday 19 March

EVENTS:
Zero Zero: by Crash Ensemble & Mango x MathMan
Presented by St Patrick’s Festival
MUSIC
In an exhilarating creative collaboration between cutting edge Irish hip hop artists Mango X Mathman with the internationally-renowned Crash Ensemble, Zero Zero fuses the worlds of street music, rap, spoken word and contemporary classical music in an emotive and unmissable night out. With new music alongside well known-hits.
Monday 16 March

Landfall
By Peter Maybury
VISUAL ART / EXHIBITION
Charting the beat and the ballet of the changing city over much of the last decade, Landfall is an immersive film and sonic installation from Peter Maybury that brings together observations on the island of Ireland as a set of geographical, social, political, and ideological conditions. At the centre of this is the drummer, around which spontaneous events unfold late at night on Dublin’s O’Connell Street.
Curated by Eamonn Doyle, Niall Sweeney & David Donohoe (Made in Dublin at Where We Live 2019).
Thursday 12 – Saturday 21 March

Landfall Live
Peter Maybury
MUSIC

To the backdrop of the dual-screen film installation Landfall, Peter Maybury presents a one-off live solo drum performance combining realtime processed electronic with acoustic drums and percussion. Peter has released solo recordings under the Hard Sleeper alias, is an occasional collaborator in David Donohoe’s Rainfear, and has released several EPs and toured extensively with Gavin Duffy and acclaimed band Thread Pulls.

Sunday 15 March

Town Hall Session
curated by Willie White and Emma Dabiri
IDEAS
Future Dublin Now
What do we need to do right now to create the future that we want and need?
Led by writer Emma Dabiri and curator Willie White, expect provocation, humour and stories of a Dublin you may not have seen before. This radical Town Hall meeting will gather your not-your-usual crew of Dubliners who will make their pitch on how to liberate this city. The alternative city council is in session. Full line-up to be announced.

Saturday 21 March

Tonie Walsh is Selling All His Records
ART MARKET
Forty years after his first DJ gig at legendary gay club Flikkers, Tonie Walsh is selling his vinyl record collection. Thousands of 12” singles and albums (many first editions and rarities) lay bare one of the longest and much lauded DJ careers in Ireland.
From original Donna Summer singles and New Order special pressings to cult clubbing white labels and rare orchestral and jazz music, this is a record collectors’ nirvana with an extra dollop of storytelling and special guest DJ sets on the side. Accompanying the pop-up art market will be a sample of Tonie’s extensive club flyer and poster collection spanning the period 1979-2019.

Saturday 21 March

Club Chroma On Tour
Closing Party
THISISPOPBABY invites you to join the Where We Live artistic family for a love-in and shake out to mark the end of festivities. We’re yoinking Niall Sweeney’s sublime Club Chroma Exhibition from IMMA and transposing it to Project Bar for one night only. Add to that a soundtrack from some of our fav Popbaby DJs, pepper it with guerrilla performances, and together we’ll dance our way to a soft landing post festival.
Presented in partnership with IMMA (Irish Museum of Modern Art). Chroma runs at IMMA until 29 March in response to the 'Derek Jarman, PROTEST!!' exhibition.
Saturday 21 March

LISTINGS INFORMATION:
PROJECT ARTS CENTRE, East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Wednesday 11 - Saturday 21 March | 11.00am-10.00pm | Ticket prices range from €5 - €21 (with FREE events also)
BOOKINGS – thisispopbaby.com / projectartscentre.ie

FURTHER INFO at: stpatricksfestival.ie
EVENT HANDLE: #WhereWeLive2020

Where We Live 2020 is made possible with the support of: The Arts Council, Dublin City Council, St Patrick’s Festival, Project Arts Centre, Mermaid County Wicklow Arts Centre, Cork Midsummer Festival, The Civic, Axis Ballymun, Draíocht, Dublin Theatre Festival, Pavilion Theatre, IMMA, and POP HEROES - THISISPOPBABY Patrons.