Scotland’s Largest Rural Performing Arts Festival celebrated its 46th Festival with high audience attendance and an ambitious and exciting programme of events.
Over 1,600 people attended the Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival, with world-class theatre, music, dance, and spoken word brought to the heart of communities across the region this May. It was a celebration of local and national artists and the thriving arts scene in the region we call home.
The Festival team brought 34 events to 24 venues across the length and breadth of the region. Through the highly ambitious and exciting programme of events, they were able to support a huge team of freelancers, enhancing the incredible events economy of the region and supporting local creative practitioners, businesses and suppliers as well as building relationships that will last a lifetime.
Simon Hart, CEO of the Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival: “We are very pleased with the success of this year’s festival, our 46th. 94% of those of our audiences who completed our feedback forms said they enjoyed the event they attended very much. With events from Port Logan to Lockerbie and so many places in between, we presented brilliant, high quality performing arts events for communities throughout Dumfries & Galloway which were received so enthusiastically. With our half-century on the horizon, we’re already preparing and looking forward to next year’s festival.”
We kicked off the festival with sold out Conference 25, a collaboration event between The Dumfries & Galloway Arts Festival and DG Unlimited. The day consisted of small group workshops including singing with Kate Howard, ceramics with Jonathan Jolly, drawing on film with Ian Gardner and spoken word with Katie Ailes. The day saw a new, more relaxed approach to networking, and gave an opportunity for creatives in all fields across the region to get together and share their expertise.
Saturday the 17 th May saw the huge arrival of Tom McGuire and the Brassholes to Dumfries.
The Glasgow band blew the roof off The Venue, and were supported by incredible local bands Skylines, 8 Days and The High Priestess. This event was a collaboration between Youth Initiative Up Yer Airts, and Closeburn Primary School, as a fundraiser to improve school resources.
Ewan Traill, head teacher of Closeburn Primary and Nursery said: “Wow what a night!
Thank you so much for supporting us with this event and putting up with me during the process. I loved every minute of my part of organising it. Please pass on my thanks to anyone / everyone else involved in this especially funders.”
The first weekend of the festival also included Unicorn Dance Party at Old School Thornhill, a perfect Saturday afternoon activity for children- celebrating joy, sparkles and finding your inner unicorn.
Week Two of the festival saw Sonic Labs light up Dark Space Planetarium with soundscapes and stunning visuals, and Sanquhar Arts Festival celebrated poetry, art and walking with Poetry of the Nith. Cirqulation Cabaret returned to Lochside Park and Crawick Multiverse for another circus extravaganza after last year’s success. The crew battled high winds and spontaneous rain fall and still managed to put on a memorable show.
Beth Malcolm and her band brought FOLKMOSIS on tour to a ‘small but mighty’ Newton Stewart crowd at The Vault Arts Centre, and it was a huge success.
An audience member said: “I have been looking forward to this for weeks and it did not disappoint. Thank you for bringing wonderful music to this tiny town.”
On Monday 26 th of May, Deliverance Theatre came to CatStrand with Goodbye Postie, for their region debut. The small New Galloway theatre was packed full of locals to show their support. The show was a huge hit.
“It is so good to see a local venue continue to support good quality local talent”.
Fringe success story Tom Foreman brought his award-winning show Boiler Room Six, and packed out The Swallow Theatre, Lockerbie Town Hall and Thornhill Old School. Maria McDonnel brought LIFE, “a lovely concept and intimate and dynamic look at ‘life’ and art,” to CatStrand and Quarrymen’s Arts Centre. The company also accompanied the shows with Drawing LIFE Workshops in both venues, which saw a unique opportunity to explore the story in depth, analysing the connection between art and storytelling.
The festival also saw a return of the World Famous Oran Mor’s A Play, A Pie and A Pint bringing their delicious lunchtime theatre offer Goodbye Dreamland Bowlarama to Moffat, Dumfries and Stranraer. Audiences stating that it was hilarious and ‘an excellent way to spend the afternoon’, A Play A Pie and A Pint is never a disappointment.
The festival featured regional theatre favourite James Rowland with his show James Rowland Dies at the End of the show, which moved audiences with his poignant storytelling of life’s fragility. One audience member said “it was so different to anything I had ever seen before”. Also new regional favourites Myshkin Warbler and Jenny Q brought audiences to tears with their show Held on the High Wire, a detailed re-telling of Jenny’s near-death experience, accompanied by stunning folk music and projected visuals.
One audience member said: “to do that with tragedy- turn it into something so stunning such a beautiful thing to do. It was fantastic.”
Chrys Salt, local legend, teamed up with friends Gerda Stevenson and Pauline Prior Pitt to bring Three of a Kind to Gatehouse of Fleet. Audiences crammed into the Faed Gallery for “the best poetry event I’ve been to here- and I’ve been to a lot!”
To close the festival, Scottish Opera returned with another Pop-Up Opera series! The Pirates of Penzance and The Gondoliers visited A’ The Airts Sanquhar and Glencairn Memorial Institute Moniaive, and audiences piled into the venues to watch the renowned operas on a miniature scale. “Haste ye back- we love having you here.”
Maureen Johnstone, the Chair of Dumfries and Galloway Council’s Education, Skills and Community Wellbeing Committee: The Arts Festival has been a beacon of cultural development not only in Dumfries and Galloway but across rural Scotland over the past forty years. The many trustees and officers who have guided the Festival in this time have shown complete commitment to the arts and serving as many rural communities of south-west Scotland as possible. It is an inspiring history and the Festival is once more going from strength to strength in this period after the pandemic.
The team had a fantastic Festival travelling the region and getting to the heart of all the different communities that they work with throughout the year. There have been some exciting partnerships built due to the success of the events this year and the team are ready to get started planning more ambitious and incredible events right across Dumfries & Galloway.
