Children's Art

Workshops

Exhibitions

Festivals

Alternative Entertainments Children's Art Festival 2011            
From June 13th until the 17th, 2011, Alternative Entertainments is hosting its 6th annual Children's Art Festival, sponsored by the Arts Council. The festival provides an excellent introduction to a variety of art forms, and is highly renowned for its diverse range of creative acts. Workshops, led by acclaimed professionals and mentors, will be available in the realms of visual art, music, dance, film and drama. Additionally, children will have the opportunity to showcase the skills they've learned in a series of performances throughout the festival.
            The Children's Art Festival events have been carefully selected in an effort to hone both intercultural and creative awareness, and to help in the critical development of artistic abilities from an early age. Additionally, the programme places participants in the special dual role of both performer and audience - a position that allows the children to explore their power to evaluate as well as create. Based in the RUA RED South Dublin Arts Centre, the Children's Art Festival will also take place in a number of South County primary schools and participating Tymon Bawn Community Centre pre-schools. The following is a list of involved establishments: Holy Rosary Primary School (Ballycragh, Tallaght); St. Kilian's Senior National School (Kingswood, Tallaght); Scoil Chonnain (Rathcoole); Adelaide & Meath Hospital, Incorporating The National Children's Hospital (Tallaght); Tymon Bawn Community Centre pre-schools: Daisychain, Four Seasons and Starlight.

Alternative Entertainments is pleased to announce an expansion to the following new venues:
RUA RED South Dublin Arts Centre; St. Thomas Senior National School (Belgard, Tallaght); Clonburris National School (Clondalkin); Celbridge Library; Scoil Santain (Tallaght). See below for this year's acts and workshops:  

Music

• A Latin American music workshop at St. Kilian's Senior National School will take place before and during the Children's Art Festival in preparation for the school's Art Festival concert on Thursday, 16th June.
• Singer/songwriter Shane O'Fearghail will conduct a songwriting workshop in St. Kilian's Senior National School, also in preparation for the school's concert on Thursday, 16th June.
• Gerry Paul, from New Zealand, will conduct a songwriting and performance workshop hosted in RUA RED South Dublin Arts Centre.
• Uilleann pipe player Martin Nolan will be accompanied by storyteller Brendan Nolan, in an act travelling from school to school each day.
• Local national schools in Celbridge will attend workshops hosted by traditional musical trio Ronan Browne, Sean Tyrell and Kevin Glacken. Ronan will be on the uilleann pipes while Sean sings and Kevin plays the fiddle. The workshops will take place in Celbridge Library and culminate in a performance in the library by the trio on Thursday, 16th June.
• Clonburris National School will host gamelan workshops with Niamh Tiernan of Gamelan Ireland, culminating in a performance by the children.
• Workshops on African drumming traditions will take place in the schools, while the pupils of The Holy Rosary National School will prepare some pieces as part of their school festival concert.
• Brazilian music duo Brian and Michael Fleming, originally from Rio de Janeiro, will conduct workshops in RUA RED and Holy Rosary National School.

• The children will see a tour of Jim Collins' found art exhibition in RUA RED South Dublin Arts Centre, as a part of a workshop led by painter Susan Connolly. The tour will be followed by a workshop in found art.
• A number of national schools will host print workshops by printmaker Amelia Peart over the course of the week.
• French artist Katy Palmieri, now based in Tallaght, will be visiting the schools with a variety of workshops on offer, including how to create 'art with anythin' and tutorials on painting, which involve deconstructing the work of masters, such as Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall.

• Film curator John Molloy will bring animated films from East Asia to the schools each day during the week.
• SongSchool will host podcast workshops covering the various activities at the festival. SongSchool will also deliver music workshops to Daisychain, Four Seasons, and Starlight pre-schools in Tymon Bawn Community Centre.

• Philippa Donnellan of CoisCeim Dance Theatre will have contemporary dance workshops in the RUA RED South County Dublin rehearsal room.
• South Dublin County Council Dancer-in-Residence Louise Costello will deliver intercultural dance workshops in RUA RED and in St. Kilian's Senior National School. The workshops in St. Kilian's Senior National School will be in preparation for the school's Art Festival concert on Thursday, 16th June.

• Multi-disciplinary performance artist Fiona Dowling will be leading a storytelling workshop at St. Kilian's Senior National School on Wednesday, June 15th.
• Sean O'Laoghaire's Glitter na Gig will bring his colourful and animated puppet show to the schools. (TBC)

Alternative Entertainments' Arts programming for children and young adults

AltEnts has always been a family-friendly organisation that has welcomed art lovers of all ages to participate in our events. From the beginning children have been encouraged to join in with musicians, painters, sculptors, writers, photographers and dancers in the creation of art. More recently we began programming specifically for national school children in our annual AltEnts Children's Art Festival. Local schools, community groups, community centres, RUA RED Arts centre, and Tallaght Hospital collaborate with us to provide a week of recitals, workshops, exhibitions and performances with some of the country's leading arts practitioners. The festival is a natural outcome from our music school projects, creative writing courses and visual arts workshops run in conjunction with our exhibitions down through the years.

Our projects with secondary schools in the area continues with regular music and visual arts activities, particularly with transition year students, ongoing in Tallaght Community School and Killinarden Community school. With the arrival of RUA RED arts centre in the area our range and volume of arts education projects has grown. The purpose built centre provides local artists and art organisations with the perfect facilities for engaging greater numbers of children and young adults in creativity and learning. At present our Rock School project, Suburban Sounds, which is run in partnership with South Dublin County Council Arts Office, Contact Studios and RUA RED, is taking full advantage of the rehearsal rooms, perfoirmance space, recordung studio and multi-media lab in the centre.