We’re delighted to announce that Veronica Dyas is our new Performing Arts Curator for Bealtaine Festival.
Veronica is an artist working through theatre, new text & installation. Facilitation, Action & LOVE are crucial to her practice. She works regularly with communities of identity, purpose and/or place. In 2020, she was Artist in Residence at Belltable Limerick writing her new stage play ‘Paddy McGrath’s Daughter’. My Son My Son (2018), her play interrogating class, gender(s) and education inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s play The Mother was staged at Project, Mermaid and Axis Ballymun. In 2016, Veronica was Artistic Director of the inaugural BallyMacSheriff NEIC Halloween Festival which prioritised intergenerational and intercommunity collaboration. For Dublin City Council Culture Company’s National Neighbourhoods Press Play: School of Identity Museum (2016-17) she worked in collaboration with the TY Students of New Cross College Finglas to make the short film ‘I’m Sick of My Life-I’m Only Messin’’ with cinematographer Jonathan Ho, and with the TY Students of Margaret Aylward’s Whitehall to install ‘We preserve this object…’ at the National Museum Collins Barracks. Veronica worked regularly with SAOL Project, and in collaboration with the SAOL Sisters, composer Ray Scannell and artist Ray Hegarty made When the World Says: ‘Give Up’ Hope Whispers: ‘Try one more time’ (2016). She made HERE & NOW (2012-2018) exploring housing, homelessness, and the practice of walking in response to the economic crash presenting in stages: HERE & NOW (i live here now) THISISPOPBABY with St. Patrick’s Festival Where We Live Festival (2018), Extracts of the HERE & NOW (2015) SCIENCE GALLERY DUBLIN HOME/SICK Exhibition, Project Arts Centre (2014), and Sorcha Kenny’s Walking We Ask Questions (DFF 2012). Veronica was Artistic Director of Roundabout Youth Theatre (2009-11), contributing to community wide festivals in Ballymun. Her solo performance ‘In My Bed’ (DFF 2011) marked a shift in her practice toward embodied autobiographical work. Veronica holds a B.A. (Hons.) in Drama & Theatre Studies with Sociology from Trinity College Dublin and an M.A. in Text & Performance Studies from RADA & King’s College London.
