What to Watch Out for in 2024
We start the year with a look at some of the arts and cultural events on the horizon in Wales in 2024.
Blwyddyn newydd dda/Happy New Year from everyone at Wales Arts Review! As we kick off another year of arts and culture in Wales, we’ve been chatting to our contributors to find out what they’re most looking forward to in 2024. So grab your diary as we take a look at a few of the things our contributors can’t wait to see this year.
Circle of Fifths, National Theatre Wales - January 2024
While the future of National Theatre Wales remains uncertain in the wake of the current funding crisis, January offers a final opportunity to catch the touring version of an immersive show which explores what connects us in times of grief and loss, using film, music and real-life stories from Butetown, Wales’ oldest multicultural community, and beyond.
Director Gavin Porter, a film and theatre-maker from Butetown, created this show with musicians and artists from his community, which debuted in 2023 and completes its tour of Wales this month.
Information on performances is available here.
New Digital Shorts from Music. Theatre. Wales (MTW) - February 2024
In February 2024, MTW will be releasing the next two digital shorts commissioned from outstanding creatives who are all new to opera – Francesca Amewudah-Rivers and Connor Allen and Simmy Singh and Myah Jeffers. As with earlier digital pieces, MTW will be using the shorts to explore what opera is and what it can be, putting storytelling in music at its heart but breaking all the other rules that are applied to style of music, story told, form and format, and most importantly who is creating it.
East of the Sun, West of the Moon, by Taz Rahman - Seren Books
Cardiff-based poet Taz Rahman’s East of the Sun, West of the Moon is named after the 1935 jazz standard, and like any great jazz tune – many of which inspire these poems – this collection is full of improvisation and innovation with language, and it demands the quality of listening carefully, of paying attention to the world. Threaded with subtlety through the collection is a sense of grief, but these poems remind us of what can be created from trauma, and how the poet can use difficult experiences to contemplate larger themes like intimacy, nature, spirituality, and language as a complex structure in which we live.
The collection is available to pre-order now from Seren Books.
Zoetrope, National Dance Company Wales - April 2024
Imaginations will run wild, promises National Dance Company Wales, as they return with a brand new family show this spring. Chimps, lizards and skeletons leap and cartwheel across a stage exploding with clever effects and music.
This entrancing family experience combines all the fun of the fair with acrobatics and dance to explore the meaning of life, the origins of film and our attraction to magic.
Choreography by the legendary Lea Anderson MBE, who you can watch talking about Zoetrope in the interview below.
Ie Ie Ie, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru - February to March 2024
Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru returns with Ie Ie Ie later this year, a Welsh adaptation of Yes Yes Yes; an award-winning show from Aotearoa/New Zealand-based theatre makers Karin McCracken and Eleanor Bishop. Directed by Juliette Manon, the show features honest interviews with young Welsh people, a gripping solo performance, and an opportunity for the audience to take part. This is an important piece of theatre about the real lived experiences of young people today that raises essential questions around healthy relationships, lust, and consent.
Tour details have yet to be announced, but confirmed dates will be released by Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru shortly.
Woman’s Wales: The Dissonance and Diversity of Devolution Through the Eyes of Women in Wales, edited by Emma Schofield - Parthian Books
Wales Arts Review’s own Editor, Emma Schofield, edits a collection filled with personal reflections on how devolution has affected the lives of women in Wales, which also features essays from a host of regular WAR contributors, including Mari Ellis Dunning, Sophie Buchaillard, Norena Shopland and Cerith Mathias.
Twenty-five years after Wales said “yes” to devolution, this collection brings together leading voices from female writers, artists, commentators and academics to reflect on how devolution has affected them and altered our political and social landscapes. Here, a series of creative and personal responses explore the true impact of devolution on the lives of women living and working in Wales, from politics, to culture, to education, to healthcare and maternity. Looking as much to the future as it does to the past, the collection questions whether the Welsh Government has delivered on its promise to build a ‘feminist government’ for Wales and poses the question, what has devolution really meant for women in Wales?
Woman’s Wales is available to pre-order from Parthian Books now.
Llais Festival 2024 - October 2024
Details of this year’s Llais Festival line up have yet to be announced, but the festival has promised to return bigger and better than ever in 2024, following the success of the 2023 festival. Details of confirmed acts will follow later in the year, but for now, you can relive some of the highlights from last year’s festival here.
Death in Venice, Welsh National Opera - February to May 2024
The spring season for the Welsh National Opera will see Britten’s Death In Venice brought to life in a new production. In the search for beauty and meaning, the renowned author Gustav von Aschenbach travels to Venice on a whim. In the sultry atmosphere of a cholera epidemic, with the scirocco blowing, he falls in love with Tadzio, a youthful aristocrat who is staying in the same hotel with his family. As Aschenbach projects his loneliness and desire on him, fantasy and imagination intermingle with existence. His obsession progresses to a fever pitch as he becomes increasingly divorced from reality.
Inspired by the original Thomas Mann novella, Britten’s magnificently atmospheric opera comes to life in this new production from WNO, creating images of ravishing beauty, as well as exploring the grotesque hidden beneath the search for the sublime. As poetic worlds of the imagination collide with reality, the early 20th century acts as a mirror to our times.
Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod- July 2024
The Llangollen International Music Eisteddfod returns this summer with a packed line-up of musical stars and choral celebrations. Every summer since 1947 Llangollen has staged one of the world’s most inspirational cultural festivals. Each year around 4,000 performers and as many as 35,000 visitors converge on this beautiful small Welsh town and its International Pavilion; to sing and dance in a unique combination of competition, performance, and international peace and friendship.
The competitions climax with the prestigious ‘Choir of the World’, which determines the best overall choir of the event. In 2005 Luciano Pavarotti added his name to the competition in recognition of his appreciation of the festival and its influence on his career.
Details of this year’s competitions and performances can be found here.