Following the success of our fourth festival in 2024, our fifth weekend will showcase the current burst of exploration and re-engagement with Classics and the ancient world. Artists, writers and thinkers, international and Irish, are taking Classics as a lens to examine our contemporary cultural and political preoccupations and challenges.
Our programme in February 2025 will present inviting encounters including performances and readings, both online and live, in public spaces - art galleries and cultural centres - with a number of events appealing to second and third-level students. In interviews, discussions, film screenings, dance and musical theatre performances you will see and hear from artists working in different genres and art forms, in thought-provoking and imaginative ways.
Come and join the new Renaissance.
Twitter/ Instagram @ClassicsNowFest
The next ClassicsNow weekend will feature online and live events in Dublin with exciting writers and artists taking the ancient past as a way to reflect on our world today.
Renowned Classicist Edith Hall’s latest book, Epic of the Earth: Reading Homer’s Iliad in the Fight for a Dying World, looks at the Iliad through the lens of climate change. She discusses her work on Greek tragedy and her life in Classics with eminent Greek-British cultural critic, Yiannis Gabriel, author of the newly published Greek Myths for a Post-Truth world. Chaired by broadcaster Vincent Woods. City Assembly House, Saturday February 1st, 6.30 pm. Booking opens on January 10th.
Spike Lee’s powerful film, Chi-Raq, set in Chicago in 2015, is an impassioned plea to end gun crime among rival gangs. With dialogue incorporating rap and hip-hop, it is a flamboyant version of ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes’ comedy, Lysistrata, in which women go on a ‘sex strike’ in protest against a prolonged war, the Peloponnesian War. Cast includes Teyonah Parris, Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack. Irish Film Institute, Sunday February 2nd, 3.40 pm.
Book tickets here ↗︎
Also online @IFI HOME.
In It was Paradise, Unfortunately, Jordanian documentary playwright Raphaël Khouri travels to Greece in a three-year search for the roots of theatre and the mystery of Dionysos. Performed by Raphaël Amahl Khouri and Greek visual artist, Myrto Stampoulou. In partnership with the Goethe-Institut and The Collective. Goethe-Institut Irland, Saturday February 1st, 1 pm. Booking opens on January 10th.
Acclaimed novelist Pat Barker concludes her compelling trilogy with The Voyage Home, following The Silence of the Girls and Women of Troy. She joins us online to talk about all three novels, and her approach to reimagining the fateful drama of Agamemnon’s return home to Mycenae from Troy. Interviewed by novelist and playwright Belinda McKeon. Online event, Friday January 31st, 7pm.
Award-winning dance-theatre artist Luke Murphy presents excerpts from his enthralling series of installations, reimagining the myth of the fire-stealing god Prometheus as a drama of power dynamics, power-cuts and the earth’s shrinking resources. In partnership with Attic Projects. Smock Alley Theatre, Sunday February 2nd, 6.30 pm. Book tickets here ↗︎
Ferdia Lennon’s riotous novel, Glorious Exploits, explores the bonds forged in wartime in 412 BC, as Athenian prisoners in Sicily perform Medea in a quarry during the Peloponnesian War. He will be joined by poet and playwright Clare Pollard, whose captivating début novel, Delphi, reads between the lines of ancient prophecies. Chaired by dramaturg Tanya Dean. City Assembly House. Saturday February 1st, 4pm. Booking opens on January 10th.
