Belfast International Arts Festival

Belfast International Arts Festival is delighted to announce that the provisional dates for Festival are Tuesday 11 October to Saturday 30 October inclusive.
Today, the Festival announces two separate and major commissions for new creative works from internationally acclaimed artists, Taylor Mac (USA) and Amanda Coogan (Ireland) that will feature as signature events in the 2016 edition.
In his first Northern Ireland appearance, the Obie Award-winning New York performer Taylor Mac will present The WW1 Years and More, a series of special, participative concerts, as part of 14-18 NOW, the UK’s official arts programme for the First World War centenary. In two concerts, his astute take on music and culture spans the years before, during and after the First World War from 1896 through to 1926. His third concert will be a ten-decade spectacular from 1916, the year of the Battle of the Somme and the Easter Rising, through to 2016. Accompanied by a live band and dressed in a dazzling array of costume creations, Mac will reflect on notions of authority, class, empire, gender, patriotism and war, and differing perceptions and attitudes to how history is made and viewed. This event has been Co-commissioned by 14-18 NOW: WW1 Centenary Art Commissions.