Monday March 22nd

Shaylyns St Patricks Day Trip to the Nordics

The Shaylyn Group performance troupe returned from our whirlwind tour of the Nordics, Denmark, Norway and Sweden on Thursday!  What a fantastic trip!  We had a great team of people the kind who know how to enjoy themselves and work hard too.  The performances were absolutely electric and the venues beautiful.  I can’t think of the name of the theatre in Copenhagen but to say it had the wow factor would be an understatement.  Later we performed at the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo plus at another stunning venue in Stockholm.  Despite the speed of our movement through these countries we still managed to get a good impression of the people and places.  Each member may have a different view but mine was that Copenhagen was pristine and beautiful, Oslo very atmospheric and more removed from our part of the world somehow and Stockholm very cultured!  One thing they all shared was very helpful and chatty people and that wonderful crisp, clean atmosphere.  So nice to be somewhere that is wildly different to our usual paths.  The staff too in each venue were amazing - any problem was sorted out quick smart and they really looked after the performers so big thank you to all of them!

Of course the reason we were there was to work with Tourism Ireland helping to promote Ireland as a tourism destination to the nordic market (thank you TI!).  It was interesting to hear how Ireland is being sold abroad and to experience first hand how hard people are working to build our tourism market.  We made some excellent new contacts for our transnational project and for further performance opportunities so perhaps we will return to these countries sooner than planned!

A final word for the Shaylynites.  What a privilege to be part of such a great team of people.  This trip has given us yet more great memories and led to even more opportunities.  We are all missing each other now but the trip to Germany is hopefully just around the corner ! 

Shaylyn is now on Facebook so if you haven’t already please become a fan!

 

 

Wednesday January 20th 2010!

I feel so bad for not writing all this time especially when i see all the great comments for the blog and website!  Thank you so much to everyone out there who took time to write, I was stunned to see so many!  Things were pretty quiet for the autumn - not behind the scenes of course but i had nothing i could really report on.  That is all changed now of course!  Our most exciting news is the start of our new transnational arts project.  We are going to work with our existing international partners and hopefully some new ones too to develop a project that will bring major funding and some exciting new arts based projects to Ballinamore.  The usual aims apply - our interest is arts and local development and the events we are bringing to Ballinamore are those of our partners, tried and tested in Europe and with proven track records for social, cultural and economic benefit. 

Ballinamore in Co Leitrim - the North West of Ireland are really beautiful and peaceful.  The perfect place for dance and music events with an international slant plus the people have music in their bones you know so its a natural leaning to want to base development on music and dance!  

In show news the troupe are off to Sweden in March for a series of events around St Patricks Day to promote Ireland as a holdiay destination.  We are really excited to have the opportunity to visit Oslo, Copenhagen and Stockholm and then in June we will return to the Spree Neisse district in Germany for the 10th International Folklore Avalanche. 

We’ve been having a terrible time here with the weather so our ‘Connecting People, Removing Borders’ project workshops have been quiet since before Christmas but we are ready to gear up again so anyone interested in having a workshop in Irish and Scottish dance should contact us.  Workshops are open to Protestant/Catholic groups/schools/clubs of all ages and abilities in the counties of Leitirm/Fermanagh/Donegal/Sligo and Tyrone mainly.  This is a chance to get a taste of both Irish and Scottish dance together.

 

Tuesday September 8th 2009

Goodness i haven’t written in ages!  Its been an incredibly busy summer with the show taking precedence above everything else.  Our summer season in Bundoran has ended plus our performance at Ballinamore festival went very well complete with full cast and state of the art sound, lighting and fireworks! 

We have been invited back to England and Germany in the first half of 2010 and are planning a performance for Mayo before this year is out but aside from that will be slowing down now for Autumn/Winter.

Classes at the centre will however be full steam ahead for Autumn/Winter with at least Irish Dance, Drama, Yoga and Guitar returning plus we are of course open to any ideas people have for classes they would like to see/deliver from the centre.

We have been really busy with our ‘Connecting People, Removing Borders’ project and have lots of requests coming in from the border counties for our Irish/Scottish workshops.  We have already recruited participants for the diary keeping feature of this project but there is always room for more so if you would like to combine an interest in dance and writing and have your views recorded as part of a living archive of peoples access to/opinions of traditional dance in our time plus of its value for peace & reconciliation and community building then please do get in touch! I realise this is a mouthful but its going to be a really nice project for people to be involved in so do get in touch!

Finally for now I would like to wish my dear friend Sandra Vernon best wishes for  the launch of her latest art exhibition at the Solas Gallery in Ballinamore this Friday the 11th of September at 7.30pm.  Anyone who can should go along to that in support and if you want to make a night of it you could always pop into Smyths Bistro across the road from the gallery for a pre or post exhibition dinner or snack.  The bistro is beautifully decorated, a lovely space to be in and the prices are very reasonable. 

 

6/8/09

Successful Launch of the ‘Connecting People, Removing Borders’ Project

Thursday the 31st of July had us back at our favourite hotel the lovely Ramada Hotel on the shores of Lough Allen for the launch of our ‘Connecting People, Removing Borders’ project funded by the International Fund for Ireland. 

Speakers on the night were myself on behalf of Shaylyn, James Kee from the Sollus Highland Dance Group, Roy Arbuckle from cross community music group ‘Different Drums’ and Rose-Mary Farrell from the Board of the fund.  Entertainment ably provided by Sollus, Shaylyn and Roy all added to an interesting, fun, music and dance filled evening. 

The focus of course was the power of dance and music as a universal language for peace, reconciliation and for community building in general.  Thanks to everyone who participated and who attended on the night. 

28/4/09

No Sign of a Slow Down Here!

2009 is looking like our busiest year yet. We have ten shows in Bundoran (every Wed night through July and Aug at Bundoran Cineplex) plus a pre residency launch show, we have the Shaylyn Sessions (Traditional Music, Song & Dance sessions open to the public and involving live performance and audience participation) at the centre here on the 21st of June and the 19th of July at 2pm each day, Ballinamore festival on Saturday the 15th of August, a performance at the launch of the Yeats season and two new International gigs in the pipeline.
This of course means a lot of rehearsal and a lot of promotional work.
This is only the tip of the iceberg however of what’s going on in the office. Next week we have ads and a press release going out to the Northern media in relation to our new International Fund for Ireland project. We are advertising for Irish and Scottish Country and Highland Dance teachers to deliver the high number of dance workshops we have committed to under the new two year project. Other work is going on with the new project too. We are planning the launch as well as sourcing venues for the workshops and developing new cross border/community contacts in the region.
We also have another press release going out to local media initially about the new Certificate in Music and Dance from the University of Limerick.
Classes at the centre, yoga, drama etc are ongoing plus we have a new two week Film Production course for teenagers starting in July that looks really good.
To top it all off I’m working on three new funding applications just to ensure a quiet moment never comes along!