www.communityvoice.ie - Art news from Dublin 15

Something for everyone

With Spring itching impatiently in the wings, it must be time for the award-winning VoiceWorks speech and drama group to showcase their collected talents at Draíocht. Some of last year’s VoiceWorks performers show off their IDAC medals

In what has become a much-anticipated annual event for Dublin 15 audiences, over 70 young people ranging in age from six to seventeen years will perform a selection of dramatic extracts, poetry, mime, dance, drama and recitals for what will doubtless be a highly enthusiastic audience.

The show will raise funds for the Laura Lynn Foundation to establish a Children’s Hospice. The group has always used the annual showcase as a means of raising funds for those less fortunate than themselves and since 2003, the children have nominated the Laura Lynn Foundation as their specific charity. “They see it as using the gift of their talents to help those who need it most,” explained VoiceWorks founder Maeve O’Donoghue. “It is a present from children to children.”

Laura and Lynn McKenna were two sisters from the Millstead area of Blanchardstown. Laura was born with a hole in her heart and sadly died aged four. On the day of her death, her thirteen year old sister Lynn was diagnosed with leukaemia and tragically died two years later in 2001.

Since then parents Jane and Brendan McKenna have been tireless fundraisers to establish a children’s hospice to bring comfort, peace and happiness to terminally ill children, their parents and their siblings. But what the performers lack in years they more than make up for in professionalism, as testified by the vast array of trophies that the group has won through the years.

The VoiceWorks group are regular winners at the annual Institute of Drama and Communication (IDAC) festival and are currently practising hard for this year’s competition which will be held in the new venue of St. Andrew’s College, Booterstown on April 11th, 12th and 13th. The competition is held between speech and drama groups throughout Dublin and beyond and there are a number of adjudicants in the various categories which include poetry speaking, solo drama, solo recital, group mime, group recital, Shakespeare and sight reading. One new addition this year is the introduction of the “Group action poetry” section, in which a poem is acted out with due dramatic gravitas.

The event at Draíocht will be a showcase of all the group have learned in each of the various disciplines.
Maeve O’Donoghue founded the Dublin 15 based group twenty eight years ago and insists that it is not all about winning prizes, “though you try telling that to some of the children!” she says. “In any group, there are people who are leaders and have strong personalities and there are the quieter ones. The beauty about working in a group is that gives the quieter children more self-esteem and draws them out.

“Some of the girls who we used to teach, now come back and help us out and some of their children are now attending the group,” says Maeve who teaches two workshops per week on Mondays and Wednesdays, as well as preparing the students for their exams at Christmas.

Most of the primary school children are drawn from St. Francis Xavier’s in Roselawn and St. Brigid’s in Castleknock, though her older students are represented in virtually every secondary school in the area. Maeve herself lives in Delwood and is always enthusiastic about appearing at Draíocht.

“The children get a great buzz about appearing on stage,” she said. “We always get the seniors to act as presenters and stage managers as it gives them some experience in these very specific roles.

Showcase 2008 plays the Main Auditorium at Draíocht on Tuesday 15th April at 7.30pm.

Tickets are €12.

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