Time to play as Macnas take to the city streets with The Wild Hunt

Fans of the annual Macnas parade can prepare themselves for a riot of tricksters, schemers and dreamers on Sunday, July 18 at 2pm when The Wild Hunt takes to the streets of Galway.

Three hundred performers are taking part in the event, which will “rip and roar its way through the town with raucousness and wildness”, said Macnas Artistic Director Noeline Kavanagh.

The city will be treated to a cacophony of images and sounds with this story, which focuses on The Wild Hunt through the eyes of a giant eight-year old boy explorer who will hold a giant butterfly net chasing after metaphorical characters.

Vagabonds, storytellers, jokers, mythical minotaurs and feral wizards will all be on parade while the imagery is inspired by artists and writers ranging from Picasso, William Blake, Seamus Heaney, and Angela Carter to Gary Snyder who were and are “engineers of the imagination, revolutionary and evolutionary”, said Kavanagh.

Clowns, pranksters and tomfoolery will be present in this year’s parade, but not the kind that many people may expect. Inventors, dream weavers, imagineers, junkyard poets and musical mayhem makers will create an atmosphere of excitement, anticipation and surprise, promises Noeline.

Wooden beasts from the animal world will feature in The Wild Hunt, as will musicians accompanied by cymbal crashing that will infuse the city streets with tribal sounds. The entire procession will be involve 60 individual performers playing roles in various characters from the candlestick maker, the wick maker or breaker, the journeyman, carpet bag sales man, inventor, priest, lover, sailor, trickster, storyteller, map-finder, troupe of acrobats, slapstick, crowd appeasers and geezers.

Prior to the parade performers will preamble with the crowds while professional and well-known Galway celebrities will be characters who engage and play with the audience while they wait but once The Wild Hunt arrives they disperse.

Over 300 people are currently rehearsing for the parade, including the Young Macnas Ensemble – a group of 30 young people from all over Galway city – as well as community cast members, well-known actors and performers, musicians, drummers and members of the wider community.

“This year the parade is taking place in a changed economic climate,” observes Noeline Kavanagh. “Macnas are working hard to keep the work vital, original and inventive just like everyone else and we have encouraged and welcomed increased participation from the local and business community.

For more, read this week's Galway City Tribune.