WORDS immortal to Barney the Bear: “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream. Rah! Rah! Rah!”
And while “up the Rah” is a Republican slogan in Ireland, the idea that ‘Nice Screams’ could ever be associated with national anthem, ‘The Soldier’s Song’ is scurrilous. Current though, given that copyright ran out on the Peadar Kearney composition in 2012.
If you have not encountered the ‘Nice Screams – a Citizens’ Anthem’ competition on social media, allow Arts page to make the introduction. EVA (exhibition of visual + art) International takes place every two years and it opens soon, operating principally out of Limerick City Gallery of Art and the former Cleeves’ site by Shannon Bridge.
‘Nice Screams’ is a collaboration between artist Deirdre Power, known for photography and Sean Taylor of Softday. Taylor has pioneered the MA SPACE – ‘Social Practice and the Creative Environment’ – course at Limerick School of Art and Design where he teaches: “We are known as SPACERS”, he says with a grin.
More sinister, this academic ‘fesses up to being fascinated by icecream chimes.
Let’s cut to why any of this makes it to Limerick Post. Taylor, with Softday project partner Mikael Fernstrom, and Power put in a proposal to EVA to run a public songwriting competition. EVA’s theme is the historical significance of 1916.
We, the common people, are invited “to create a citizens’ anthem celebrating the Ireland of 2016”. The winning number will cash in €200 and be converted to a jingle for a honky – that’s an icecream van – and be played by two Shannon Ices vans around the town.
Hurry, the closing date is Friday February 19. The winning Citizens’ Anthem for 2016 will premier at The People’s Park on Sunday April 24 with…you got it, icecreams for everybody. Even Barney.
There will be a sneak hear-view on the Biennale’s opening night, April 16, possibly under the loom of Cleeve’s chimney.
Photo: Dermot Lynch
This honky lark loops back to a bona fide competition run in the Anglo-Irish biased Daily Mail of 1924. It secured adjudicators WB Yeats, Lennox Robinson and James Stephens to offer 50 guineas for the writing of a new anthem for the new Ireland.
“That panel of luminaries in the literary art world found nothing that pleased them,” Taylor states with some satisfaction.
Under threat of suit, the State coughed up a €1000 in 1933 to Kearney, lyricist and composer Heaney, and 35 years later another €2,500 when copyright law changed.
If it pleaseth you, submit your entry (3mins tops) in any number of ways: record yourself; by hardcopy to Limerick 2020 Culture House at No. 2 Pery Square; Youtube; MP4; VAV or AIFF.
The last word: “Potentially, you could even sing it down the phone to us and we record it for you”.
See http://softday.ie/nicescreams/participate.html
