The first conference on Arts for Early Years in Ireland was held in Galway on October 16th and 17th 2009. Part of the Baboró International Arts Festival for Children, the conference attracted delegates and speakers, presenters and artists from across the globe. Michael D Higgins, TD, opened the conference on Friday evening, October 16th, before delegates spread out across the city, attending performances by Italian, Irish and Danish theatre companies.
Download the podcast of Michael D Higgins’ opening speech.
Martin Drury, Arts Director with the Arts Council gave the opening keynote speech and participated in a panel discussion at the Natural Born Artists Conference for early years on the 17th October. Download the podcast of Martin Drury’s keynote speech. Or download the video of the full speech (159MB / 40 mins).
Where possible we have embedded videos from YouTube, but where videos are longer than 10 minutes we have made them available for download.
Following Martin Drury’s Keynote speech, delegates spread out across the city to attend performances by Teater Refleksion (Denmark), PigNut (Ireland) and La Baracca (Italy). Following the performances, they reconvened in the Town Hall Theatre for a Panel Discussion on Creating the Arts For Early Years, chaired by Paul Fahy, Artistic Director of Galway Arts Festival. The panelists were Jason Ryan (PigNut), Martin Drury (The Arts Council) Bjarne Sandborg (Teater Refleksion) and Carlotta Zini & Andrea Buzzetti (La Baracca) video (153MB / 30 mins).
Clinical psychologist, broadcaster and author David Coleman was a key presenter at the Natural Born Artists Conference for Early Years on the 17th October.
Download the podcast of David Coleman’s keynote speech. Or download the full video (309MB / 30 mins).
Observational Studies Presentations were introduced by Rebecca Bartlett.
Studies were presented by Rhona Matheson, Starcatchers Scotland, Corina Chiran, Independent Practitioner Romania and Charlotte Fallon, Theatre De La Guimbarde, Belgium.
Download the Observational Studies podcast.
You can also download the full videocast from Rhona, Corina or Charlotte.
The Observational Studies were followed by 3 Parallel Sessions:
- Creating the Arts for Early Years
- Teaching – the Creative Teacher
- Parents’ and Adults’ roles in the Arts for Early Years
These were not videoed, but the Plenary Session which closed the conference was recorded and contains presentations from participants in all 3 Sessions. Unfortunately, it is too long to be embedded on YouTube, but we have a version to download here (130MB / 36mins).
