Macnas: A manifestation of true creativity
If you haven’t seen a Macnas production yet, your life is probably missing a certain element of magic that can only be found in a crowd of thousands of people turning up for one of the most incredible street spectacles in the world.
A manifestation of true creativity, Macnas brings a sense of wonderment to streets all over the world, leaving in its wake colour and magic that wasn’t there before.
Macnas is the frolic-like behaviour of a young calf let out to grass for the first time after being kept inside all winter. Macnas is ‘joyful, abandonment, dalliance and wantonness’.
Established in 1986, Macnas was the first theatre spectacle company in Ireland. For 31 years, Macnas have been turning cities into playgrounds of the imagination, with over 55,000 people turning up to live shows, and millions watching online.
Even former President of the USA Barack Obama got to take in the astonishing spectacle that was Macnas, when the company premiered at the prestigious South by Southwest Festival last year.
“It’s very important that we’re based in the west of Ireland. All of this national and international work comes from a country on the edge of the Atlantic,” said Noeline Kavanagh of Macnas.
And it travels. In fact, one of its biggest spectacles – a 15 foot 8-year-old boy – walked from Galway, across Ireland, and ended up going to WOMADelaide – one of Australia’s most popular outdoor festivals of music, art and culture.
“He then ended up walking across Adelaide and Sydney on a quest for brilliant ideas,” said Noeline.
And, with a team of maybe 45 professional artists working on events, and around 300 citizens taking part in shows, there’s certainly no shortage of ideas. With Macnas, there’s always something new and exciting to behold.
“The Halloween parade is the biggest event in Ireland at that time of year, bringing 55 thousand people out over the October bank holiday weekend,” said Noeline.
“We premiere our work in our home town of Galway and then we travel to Dublin to to the Bram Stoker Festival the next day, taking over the north side of Dublin’s city centre.”
This year’s Halloween spectacle can be seen in Galway on 29 October, and at the Bram Stoker Festival in Dublin on 30 October. And, in November, the company will travel to Hull, the UK’s City of Culture – that’s three major spectacles in a matter of weeks.
“A big part of our programme is not only the delivery of an award-winning spectacle created and made by the Macnas ensemble of artists, who are absolutely astounding; but also that we run a public participation programme. And there’s a number of strands to that,” said Noeline.
She’s referring to Macnas Óg, which nurtures and engages with children between the ages of seven and 12.
“They then graduate to the Macnas Young Ensemble, so we sustain and nurture and grow the next generation and the next engineer of imagination, so that Macnas thrives for another 30 years, as an iconic company in the west of Ireland.”
And, with so much culture and art in Galway City (the European City of Culture 2020) and further afield, it’s hard to imagine Macnas ever running out of imagination.
“I think what’s exciting is that we’re moving into the European City of Culture for 2020 and that Macnas are a key feature of that programme,” said Noeline.
“We will be presenting a very exciting piece of work. It’s the world’s oldest and biggest and first ever literary epic, called Gilgamesh. It’ll be one big, spectacular journey that’s going to happen over the next two and a half years.”
Watch this space.
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