Launch Programme

• 5:30pm: Welcome
• 5:45 pm:MASQUERADE is an experimental performative happening that unfolds as a live exploration of masks, identity, and form. Inspired by Witold Gombrowicz’s reflections on the mask, the work exists as an open inquiry rather than a finished performance. Through spoken fragments, embodied actions, and live music, the artists test how identity is shaped, performed, and destabilised. Masks—traditional, grotesque, neutral, and ceremonial—appear as tools for experimentation, not symbols with fixed meaning. Baroque music and Gregorian-inspired chant enter into dialogue with movement and voice, evoking tensions between the sacred and the everyday. The audience is invited to witness a process in motion, where meaning remains fluid and unresolved. Performed by actor Justyna Cwojdzińska.
• 6:30pm: Masks and Music in Ceremonial Context: Transformation and Liberation. Billy Mag Fhloinn will give a presentation and performance based on his work as director of Pagan Rave. This is an ongoing project which aims to reimagine folk traditions and calendar customs of Ireland. Using as a starting point the ancient costumed figures of Irish and European folk theatre and seasonal festivals, it seeks to operate at the margins of place and mind, and embody the transformative and liberating aspects of masks and music in a ceremonial context. Space will be given to audience questions and interaction, and the event will finish with a performance on the yaybahar, an acoustic instrument invented by the Turkish musician Gorkem Sen.
• 7:30pm: Reception