YES Festival 13-16 June as part of ULYSSES European Odyssey

The YES Festival 13-16 June, 2024 is a new multi-arts event which will see women artists from across Europe will travel to Ireland to present work in venues and public spaces across Derry and north Donegal. The programme will include theatre, dance, visual arts, installations, film, writing, photography, textiles, circus, music, rap, and song.

The festival is the culmination of ULYSSES European Odyssey, an unprecedented international project supported through Creative Europe, which since 2022 has seen partners in 18 cities in 16 countries across Europe take Joyce's novel as the starting point to explore contemporary issues.

The YES Festival is inspired by the character Molly Bloom, who features in James Joyce's masterpiece Ulysses. Sunday 16th June, Bloomsday, will be renamed Molly Bloomsday in celebration of his wife and to mark the end of ULYSSES European Odyssey.

On Sunday 16th June, as part of YES Festival, there will be the world premiere screening of The Molly Film, a new film featuring Fiona Shaw, Harriet Walter, Cush Jumbo, Miriam Margolyes and four other internationally renowned stage and screen actresses, each reading one of eight long sentences that form Molly Bloom's stream of consciousness monologue.

YES Festival Highlights:

• Molly Bloomsday. An 18-hour cultural journey across Derry and Donegal, re-interpreting Leopold Bloom's journey across Dublin and that of ULYSSES European Odyssey across Europe.
• The Molly Bed. A large-scale interactive public installation, with a digital screen as headboard conveying messages by women from around the world.
• SIRENSCIRCUS. Inspired by John Cage's Musicircus, which brings together the public, musicians and others to create a powerfully joyous sonic experience.
• An event on Derry’s historic 17th century walls bringing together marching bands from both traditions.
• Dance In! A participatory event inspired by the women that worked in Derry's shirt factories, and a dance performance responding to the famous Derry Girls mural and the hit television show.
• The Return of Ulysses Trail. Each of the 18 ULYSSES European Odyssey city partners will send exhibits from their projects for presentation at venues on a trail from Derry City Football Club in the west of the city to Ebrington Square in the Waterside east.

More details about the YES Festival and events can be found here on the ULYSSES European Odyssey website.

The YES Festival is produced and curated by ARTS OVER BORDERS Ireland, who have also received co-funding from the Department of Foreign Affairs Ireland. They developed ULYSSES European Odyssey with partners in the following cities: Athens, Trieste, Vilnius, Budapest, Marseille, Paris, Berlin, Lugo, Copenhagen, Istanbul, Cluj, Zurich, Leeuwarden, Eleusis, Oulu, Lisbon, Dublin and, finally, Derry and Donegal.