ON the back of a two-year hiatus for live events, Belfast Children's Festival 2022 is returning with a line-up of gigantic proportions.
As well as a host of magical experiences, the festival focuses on real life issues of the Covid-19 pandemic, mental health and wellbeing, bullying and homelessness through dance, drama and performance.
Touch, a new exhibition created by local children, will explore the impact of social distancing during lockdown, reflecting on and creatively responding to the pandemic impact.
The hybrid exhibition will be available to view at the common room at the MAC as well as at home on QFT Player.
Do As I Say, a physical dance performance from Sweden, explores issues of bullying and authority. Aimed at a teenage audience, it takes them on a thought-provoking journey looking at how group pressure can affect us, asking who is the authority, why do we all do as they say, and what happens if we refuse to follow their orders?
NI Opera's newly commissioned opera Nobody, Somebody will lay bare some of the unspoken realities of social and housing problems for teenagers.
The librettist Fionnuala Kennedy and composer Neil Martin are in the early stages of collaboration on this fascinating project and festival goers will be able to see this work in development and find out more about plans to fully produce the opera in 2023.
"Demanding and exhilarating in equal measure, we're both utterly captivated by this multi-layered journey, exploring and mining ways of telling hugely important stories about young lives.
"The opera will share with the audience aspects of love, family, fear, humour, hardship and institutional disregard. And central to it all will be the unfailing strength of human character, the resolve of young voice to be deservedly heard," explains Fionnuala.
There is of course plenty for younger audiences, from Rockin' Rhymes, featuring nursery rhymes as you've never heard them before to Underwater dance piece for the under two's and Getting Dressed Films. These five short dance films, set to an 80s' inspired soundtrack, transforms our everyday clothes into celebrations of our individuality.
Harbour, a new production from Replay Theatre Company, is an enchanting multi-sensory baby opera for pre-walking little ones.
Featuring melodious tunes and mellow movement, four classical musicians – a flautist, a harpist and two singers - perform a specially-composed score.
"I came across an advert for a piece of nursery equipment called a coracle, a little wooden crib on the floor that little ones can go and curl up in on the floor when they are tired," explains director Janice Kernaghan-Reid about her inspiration behind Harbour.
The image of "Moses in a basket floating down the river" and "the rhythm and feeling of being on water", further sparked her imagination for this immersive experience.
An exciting piece of drama aimed at those aged eight and above which combines reality with the magic of escapism is A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings.
Based on Gabriel Garci?a Ma?rquez's darkly comic tale, it is about a man and woman whose child has a fever, and they find a sick, injured old man, with enormous wings outside their house.
A wise neighbour tells them he's an angel who's come to take their child away. The priest says he's an imposter. Pilgrims flock to see him, hoping to be healed by him. They leave with something different than what they expected.
The play is directed and co-adapted by Dan Colley, artist in residence at Riverbank Arts Centre in Kildare.
"I came across this story in a book of short stories and found it fascinating and gently provocative that this one happened to be called a tale for children, when the other ones didn't have that subtitle. I honestly couldn't tell the difference," says Dan.
He explains it's not your typical folklore story with a moral lesson. With multiple contradictory ideas, there's a lot more to it.
"There are some really great writers who write for children, like Oscar Wilde and Hans Christian Andersen, but you're always getting the impression they're trying to teach the audience something.
"In this case you honestly couldn't pick out on a single moral from it. What you are left with is just something human and magically realistic. It's left up to the audience to decide how they feel about these people and how they feel about the situation.
"We get so few opportunities to exercise our emotions without having to analyse why we feel them," adds Dan, who says it's the perfect drama for parents and their children to watch together and provides plenty of fodder for post-show bedtime chats.
"Is interesting the different responses, identities and perspectives audiences bring to it. Some think he's a homeless person and others think he may be a refugee."
Welcoming the return of the festival face to face, Young at Art Director, Eibhlin de Barra says: "We've missed everyone so much and are so excited by the prospect of giggles of delight, gasps of surprise and seeing smiley faces at our shows again.
"This year's Belfast Children's Festival aims to inspire giant imaginations, young and old, with many BCF22 events having a giant theme, reflecting the desire to have ginormous fun together again. And we also have included again a digital programme of performances for everyone to enjoy at home."
Other festival favourites returning include Acoustic Picnic, Baby Rave and the Giant Family Day Out on March 12 at Belfast's Cathedral Quarter, with walkabout characters, circus, street comedy, magic tricks, storytelling, ArtCart, pop-up cinema and much more.
:: The Belfast Children's Festival takes place from March 4- 13. For full details of events and booking visit Youngatart.co.uk/festival.
