Events & Panels
I’m asked to speak, chair panels and interviews, and run workshops regularly for different events and organisations. Some recent examples are here:
In February 2020, I am one of a team of four advisors running a Festival World Cafe as part of the Changemakers Conference, the first national festivals conference in Ireland, hosted by University of Limerick and Arts Council Ireland. My session will encourage festival organisers (large and small-scale) to look at purpose, intention and change in festivals.
Panel Chair on ‘Tackling Borders within the Dance Industry’ at Co-Motion: the first All-Island Dance Conference, Crescent Arts Centre, Belfast October 2019. Coordinated by Dance Resource Base, Dance Ireland, Queen’s University Belfast and in association with Belfast International Arts Festival.
Workshop Facilitator ‘Speaking a Different Language’, helping artists master business language and approaches for the Broken Crow Residency at the Everyman, Cork (April 2017).
Chair of panel with Jo Caust, Constance Devereaux and Tseng Sun Man as part of Brokering Intercultural Exchange, an international research network seminar at Queen’s University Belfast (April 2017). Click here for audio & PPTs.
Chair of panel on ‘The role of festivals in supporting the development of new work‘ at Birmingham Rep as part of On The Edge World Festival of Theatre for Young Audiences (July 2016). I was involved in the Artistic Advisory group for the festival during 2014 – 2016.
Keynote on ‘Who will pay for the value that theatre brings to society?’ as part of the Theatre 2016 Conference (May 2016). A tidied up version of what I said is here.
Over the years, I’ve contributed to events for (among others) Arts &Business NI, TheatreNI, ASSITEJ, Belfast City Council, Theatre Forum and have also chaired discussions and interviews for the Lughnasa International Friel Festival, Theatre Forum, TYA Ireland, and Eurocities among others.
Topics range from how we interpret shared cultural space in peacebuilding and regeneration; to children’s cultural rights and their development as citizens; how the arts function as part of the voluntary sector; advocacy for the arts and how we inform policy; festivals as meeting points and market places and as drivers for a city identity; the arts and the Global Economic Crisis; audience development and how we reach families as well as communities; and arts within the education sector.
Media
I have in the past written and done quite a lot of media work for a range of outlets. A selection is here:
Our cultural leaders have a choice… for Slugger O’Toole (Mar 2017)
Fair Trade is a model theatre should adopt for The Stage (Oct 2016)
Once more around the fishbowl, or maybe not for Slugger O’Toole (Feb 2016)
Funding the arts in the ‘real’ world for Scope NI, online platform (Oct 2014)
I used to have a blog called Devilsintheteatowels but it didn’t last.
If you want to hear me speak, check out these:
Young at Art Launch event; I had more but I can’t find them now 🙂
Ali FitzGibbon 