Festival in a Van will take its Shared Music Sessions to Portumna this week on Thursday 15 and Friday 17 September, performing in various locations as part of Shorelines Festival 2022.
Festival in a Van was set up by Gemma Tipton in 2020, turning a box van into a mobile stage, as a way of keeping live performance going during Covid.
Travelling in a bubble, and armed with oceans of hand sanitiser, the team was able to visit care homes, schools, residential centres and direct provision centres touring music, theatre and poetry.
Festival in a Van is now touring the country to provide a vital cultural link for Ukrainian and other refugees in Ireland.
With Irish and Ukrainian musicians making a musical marriage, together with musicians from other refugee communities, The Shared Music Sessions tours 20 counties, with 26 days of sessions, which began on Ukrainian Independence Day last month.
“In times of global turmoil, small things can feel like a drop in an angry ocean, and yet it is so important to keep doing those small things,” said Festival in a Van’s Gemma Tipton.
“Connecting people through culture and our shared love of music can go way beyond words at the most difficult of times.”
In 2020 Festival in a Van staged more than 60 performances in 11 counties, and worked with 48 musicians, singers, poets, artists and performers.
