Culture Night

Various venues around Ireland Tonight culturenight.ie

As the satirist Tom Lehrer once sang of National Brotherhood Week, “Be grateful that it doesn’t last all year.” What, then, should we make of Culture Night, now in its fifth year, and the impact it makes on the other 364 days of the cultural calendar? What began as a Temple Bar Cultural Trust initiative has now spread throughout the nation, removing the main obstacles between us and reflections of our world – namely inconvenient opening hours and price tags. Tonight, cultural institutions large and small will keep their doors open long into the night and waive the price of admission, meaning you’ll have the joyful double-take of seeing a young family, up way past bedtime, wandering the halls of Trinity College Library, Cork’s Triskel Arts Centre or Dublin Contemporary 2011, like delighted explorers.

Theatre events have responded with some imagination this year, but Bray's Mermaid Arts Centre has best caught the spirit of the night with a three-header that is beyond tantalising: Fishamble's award-winning Silent, Crash Ensemble's Aisling Gheal for Cello and Electronics, CoisCéim Dance Theatre's film, Deep End Danceand, finally, a Crash/Cois collaboration in Cello Counterpoint.

It’s that level of diversity and one-off specialness that honours the event, where memories and passions are acquired that may not last not a night, or a year, but a lifetime.