Deadly adventures await you at Bram Stoker Festival this Halloween!
One of Dublin’s most anticipated festivals, Bram Stoker Festival, returns to celebrate the supernatural, the thrill of Samhain and the legacy of one of Ireland’s most treasured authors this October Bank Holiday weekend.
By day, the Bram Stoker Festival programme presents gothic intrigue at family-friendly events, talk and interactive experiences. At night, the city will embrace the darkness as a host of venues deliver deadly adventures for festival goers in search of macabre thrills and late-night parties. The festival programme includes theatre, spectacle, visual arts and music, in haunting locations across the city celebrating Dublin’s gothic and supernatural traditions, the city itself and gothic architecture.
Brought to you by Dublin City Council and Fáilte Ireland, Bram Stoker Festival recently revealed its full programme of events. Here are but a few we at DublinTown are most looking forward to:
Fast becoming a much-loved Dublin tradition, thousands of people are once again expected to line the streets of Dublin One for the Macnas Parade entitled ‘Out of the Wild Sky’ (Monday 29th, starting from Moore Street, 7pm, FREE), an incredible spectacle of magic and macabre. World-renowned pioneers of imagination and invention, Macnas transform the city streets as dusk falls, with a haunting and hair-raising procession of otherworldly creatures.
NYsferatu: Symphony of a Century (Friday 26th, St. Anne’s Church, 7pm & 9pm, tickets €21) is a stunning rotoscope recreation of the classic 1922 horror film Nosferatu, set in present day New York City, featuring 35,000 hand drawn images, replicating the eerie, flickering shutter effect of early cinema. Turning the original premise on its head, NYsferatu challenges the classical interpretation of the vampire as an outsider, and addresses the many obstacles encountered by immigrants who often escape war and hardships at home only to face economic exploitation, discrimination and xenophobia in their new country.
The film will be accompanied by the world premiere of a newly commissioned live score by internationally renowned composer Matthew Nolan (Ireland), with similarly celebrated international musicians Erik Friedlander (U.S.A), Sean MacErlaine (Ireland) and Jan Bang (Norway) at the church where Bram Stoker married Florence Balcombe in 1878.
Fans of Sky One’s TV adaptation of A Discovery of Witches and the All Souls Trilogy will love Deborah Harkness: In Conversation with Patrick Freyne (Sunday 28th, The Chapel Royal at Dublin Castle, 2pm, Tickets €11), a public interview and Q&A with the writer behind some of the most compelling characters in contemporary fiction. The American scholar and novelist will discuss her New York Times best-selling novel ‘A Discovery of Witches’, her globally bestselling ‘All Souls Trilogy’, and recently published new novel ‘Time’s Convert’.
While panel discussion NYsferatu – Xenophobia and the Vampire Myth (Saturday 27th, Trinity College Dublin, 1pm, €5), will delve into the themes explored in Andrea Mastrovito’s NYsferatu: Symphony of a Century chaired by Trinity College Dublin’s Professor Matthew Causey with photographer and visual artist Dragana Jurisic, Deirdre Ni Cheallaigh of Trócaire, Micaela Martegani of More Art NYC and NYsferatu director Andrea Mastrovito.
Enjoy family fun at Dracula’s Disco (Monday 29th, 2pm, FREE) returning to Meeting House Square with DJ Will Softly on The Ark’s outdoor stage, complete with confetti cannons to inspire some seriously deadly dancing; or visit Brown Bag Films Studio in Smithfield for Animation Workshop with Director on Disney’s Vampirina (Sunday 28th, 1pm & 2.30pm, tickets €6), a fun vampire-themed animation workshop for kids with Emmy Award winning artist Mårten Jönmark, director on Disney’s Vampirina TV series.
