Cork Midsummer Festival Top Picks
Hello everyone! We are back with another blog post for you this week to talk about an amazing event that’s going on from the 14th to the 25th of June in Cork.
The event is the Cork Midsummer Festival and it’s an annual multi-disciplinary arts festival that uses the city as its backdrop and inspiration. It provides high-quality arts events, both national and international, for audiences of all ages.
There will be so much going on that it will be impossible for you to choose where to go and what to see, so to help you out we’ve made a list of our top 10 picks from the 2023 festival:
1. Sun & Sea.
This is a live performance that takes place over four hours on a crowded beach. It features live opera singing from individuals and choirs too. In total there will be 45 performers on the beach at any one time, and an audience of up to 100 people watching. You can also join the performance as a volunteer and spend some time on the beach to picnic, read or play games. The performance will be from Friday 23 to Sunday 25 June at Millennium Hall, City Hall from 5 pm to 9 pm. You can buy tickets by clicking here.
2. Ritual
It’s a highly visual live performance installation led by dancers and musicians, audiences will move promenade-style through the atmospheric Marina Market warehouse and experience a collision of artists’ responses, interrogations, and radical celebrations of the witch as a symbol of dissidence. Merging visceral movement, striking visuals and live sound, RITUAL is a disturbance, a happening, an unveiling of an experiment unique to Cork Midsummer Festival from the 14th to the 17th of June at 8.30 pm. You can buy tickets for this one on their website by clicking here.
3. Four lovers
The unmissable show will reimagine the four lovers from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in an astonishing display of Circus, Music and Wonder. Become voyeurs of Desire, Jealousy, Rivalry and Scorn as you witness spectacular acrobatic performances.
This will run from the 21st to the 24th of June at Circus Factory Cork, tickets are here.
4. CMF music trail
Through a lineup of established and emerging talents, this trail brings together the most vital voices in the region across a variety of sounds and genres (electronic, house music, pop). Each performance is a testament to the inspiring artistry that is alive and well in Cork, with artists fearlessly pushing sound forward through creative experimentation.
Join this music trail that will take you from brunch to bedtime across some of Cork’s hottest venues on the 17th of June. These events are all free, and you can see a list of the artists that will be performing on their website by clicking here.
5. Midsummer parade
This street-art spectacle presented by Cork Community Art Link will be a riot of colour, celebrating the creativity and diversity of Cork communities. Over 200 participants will help make the magic, collaborating to create floats, costumes, and performances.
You can join the party on the 18th of June from 3 pm in Oliver Plunkett Street.
6. Ode to Joy
The Cork Deaf Community Choir and artist Amanda Coogan will perform Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in Irish Sign Language alongside the Dublin Theatre of the Deaf Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. This performance will be an aural and visual feast but also an embodiment of the struggle for acceptance and equality.
Come to join this stunning live performance on the 24th and 25th of June at 11.30 am or 1 pm at Lecture Theatre, Crawford Art Gallery. This performance is free, but you need to book tickets here.
7. The wind that shakes the wig
One of Ireland’s most exciting drag acts, Candy Warhol, rediscovers her grá for her homeland in this glittering show for the soul! Aided by her spirit guide Saint Marian Mary The 6th, this dynamic duo revisit Ireland’s pop culture pioneers and limelight lion hearts as they journey down the yellow brick. You can book tickets here.
8. Creepy parade / Egg collection to emotions
These site-specific live art and installations are from Japanese artist Seiko Hayase
Creepy Parade is a street performance where five performers and live Irish pipe musicians wearing ‘brain hats’ explore how emotions stuck in the body might look if one day they chose to go out on the street and dance with others. You can see this performance from the 14th till the 25th of June in three different places in Cork: Fitzgerald’s Park at 1 pm, Emmet Place at 5 pm and Marina Market at 7.30 pm.
Egg – Collection Of Emotions is an installation based at Marina Market representing a collection of released emotions. With the evolution of technology and ‘instant’ connections, every second in the world billions of emotions arise that are born and disappear. This event is free, you can see more information on it by clicking here.
9. Be part sharing
Join Suisha Arts for a sharing of work-in- progress scenes from their 2024 production, Home Sweet Home and a post-show discussion with the group about inclusive arts practices, access, identity and more.
Come to see what they have arranged for you on the 21st of June at 6 pm at the Dance Cork Firkin Crane. This event is free and you can see more information on it by clicking here.
10. A handful of dreams
An awe-inspiring and heart-warming outdoor show that combines aerial and circus arts with live Irish traditional music and dance as well as contemporary composition and sound design.
It’s inspired by the poem The Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats and The Celtic Twilight book of fairies, ghosts, and spirits.
You can join the show on the 17th at 12 pm and 4.30 pm and on the 18th of June at 12pm and 2pm. This even will also be free, and again you can see more information about the organisers on the website here.
Here is a recent video from the Cork Midsummer Festival to give you an idea of what’s to come:
That’s all from us this week, enjoy the festival and if you do head out for it to any of our reccomended events, and would like us to reshare your pics you can tag us on our socials as always @corkenglishcollege