Dublin Fringe Festival 2023 A Year in Review
As we embark on another transformative year of Dublin Fringe Festival, we would like to take the opportunity to look back on what has been a remarkable and vibrant year for us in 2023.
The 2023 edition of Dublin Fringe Festival saw 562 performances take place in 32 venues across Dublin City, welcoming more than 33,000 audience members to 45 world premieres, 18 Irish premieres and 9 Dublin premieres in a programme of 77 shows put together by more than 560 artists and championed by 180 volunteers!
Beginning with Justin Vivian Bond and Anthony Roth Costanzo's joyous and surprising musical fantasia Only An Octave Apart and ending with The Garden of Shadows by Jony Easterby which transformed the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin into a magical illuminated nightscape, it was a festival of lasting memories. Furthermore, we increased accessibility across our programme with an exciting new commission ISL Deaf Translations Project by Lianne Quigley, with three shows supported by ISL. Another three shows were also supported by Audio Description. In 2024 we will continue to increase accessibility.
In October – November 2023, the selected artists for this year's Weft Studio - Debora Adachi, Matthew Sharpe, Clodagh Boyce, Georgie Lynch, Karen Aguiar, Mai Ishikawa, Daranijoh Sanni (E The Artist) and Shauna Harris took part in a series of Masterclasses presented by international practitioners in the fields of theatre, literature, photography and interdisciplinary practices; Hannah Khalil, Benji Reid, Julie McNamara and Mele Broomes. This year’s Weft Studio was facilitated by playwright and producer Shannon Yee.
In 2023, Dublin Fringe Festival and Earagail Arts Festival partnered for the first time on a new Weft residency programme with Afro-Brazilian dancer Alessandra Azevedo to support the development of her new work Terra and to build connections with communities and dancers of all backgrounds across Donegal. Terra will be presented as part of this year’s festival with the support of our Break New Ground Bursary.
Our Weft Audience Club, hosted by Khanyisile Mbukwane (Weft Audience Club Coordinator), invited a number of Black and global majority audience members to attend work across the festival programme. We worked with an incredible network of artists and partners as part of Weft and we will continue this work in the year to come.
Over 12 months, we have supported over 10,000 artists developing new work through the provision of FRINGE LAB rehearsal space. Over the year the studios have played host to a selection of brand-new artists and industry leaders. We were delighted to be back with the Break New Ground Bursary, piloted in 2022, which will support an artist who has not led a project at Dublin Fringe Festival before, towards developing an ambitious new idea for live performance. Sl(t)áinte by Kate Dunne, one of two recipients of Break New Ground in 2022 was presented in Dublin Fringe Festival 2023, while Alessandra Azevedo’s Terra will be presented this year.
In 2023, we continued our popular scratch night FRINGE FUSE events, we ran online and in-person activities, provided targeted mentorship opportunities, our monthly coffee morning Elevenses and presented a series of skills development workshops with national and international mentors.
We hosted three fantastic Resident Artists: Trudie Gorman, Sam Killian and Nick Nikolaou and five national artist residencies with Artist at Work, Andrea Williams, Jenni Nikinmaa, Cal McElwee, GoblinsGoblinsGoblins and Chinedum Muotto.
We also introduced two new Associate Artists to our year-round team, Shanna May Breen and Dafe Orugbo and recruited two new Associate Artists for 2024 (to be announced soon). We’ve been busy!
There is so much to come, starting with opening the 2024 festival applications later this month.
With your help, we can do more, support more artists in the year ahead, and create more unforgettable festival experiences.
All donations are invested in artists and their projects, giving them the resources, the space and the confidence they need to dream big. Join us on our journey this year and be part of Dublin Fringe Festival 2024.
