Cork Opera House hosting new one-day festival

A new one-day festival presented by Cork Opera House, featuring work by neurodivergent artists, is set to take place this March.

Neurofestivity - A Celebration and Exploration is an inaugural festival that will provide a platform to a number of neurodivergent artists across the day and will feature writers and performers such as Cork Opera House Theatre Artist-in-Residence, Jody O’Neill, Stefanie Preissner, Kel Menton and Ian Lynam.

Artists will be invited to present established and in-progress work, encouraging dialogue about neurodiverse work and exploring the many nuances of being a neurodivergent artist. The festival will occur across five events at University College Cork (UCC) on March 10.

The programme welcomes emerging writers from the neurodiverse student community in UCC, as well as established writers and performers.

At 12.30pm members of the Neurodiverse Visual Artists Group will host an open informal lunch, sharing items of interest and inspiration in their work in the Connolly Building At 2pm, Works in Progress – Student Presentations will see students from within the neurodiverse student population in UCC present works in progress across a number of art forms.

At 4pm, Readings of New Wor will see writers and performers, Jody O’Neill, Stefanie Preissner, Kel Menton and Ian Lynam present 10-minute readings of new work.

At 6.30pm, The Neurodivergent Artist panel discussion will welcome Fiona Ferris (Deputy CEO, AsIAm) in conversation with invited neurodivergent artists and at 8pm the festival will finish with a performance of autistic theatre writer Roderick Ford’s Daughter of God in The Granary Theatre.

Cork Opera House CEO, Eibhlín Gleeson said: “This festival is an opportunity to bring neurodivergent artists together and explore the processes of making work in today’s society.

“There is much to celebrate and much to talk about and we hope this will be the start of a wider platform for the presentation of work by this exciting community of artists in the future.” COH and UCC Theatre Artist-in-Residence, Jody O’Neill, said: “In my experience, there is a unique creativity and fusion that occurs in spaces where neurodivergent artists come together.

“I’m looking forward to seeing what conversations will take place on the day and where they will lead us in the future.” 

Tickets are available on the Cork Opera House website. 

All attendees of Neurofestivity will be offered a discount code for Daughter of God tickets.