Noise Upstairs — Dublin Inquirer

Wednesday, 20 January – Phonica: One, 20:00, Free, Jack Nealon’s Pub

Phonica: One is a new multidisciplinary evening hosted by poet/curator Christodoulos Makris and performer/composer Olesya Zdorovetska. The creators hope to provide a platform for exchanges among artists from different fields, and a space within which new ideas can be explored and improvised. Its first outing, this Wednesday, brings together acoustic/electronic composer Linda Buckley, saxophonist Nick Roth and writers Sue Rainsford and Maurice Scully. Facebook event here.

Thursday, 21 January – Rosebud, 18:00, Free, Library Project

Black Church Print Studio are launching a specially produced edition of The Fold with an exhibition of artist responses to the power of manifesto wielded by the printed publication. Alongside the multi-medium exhibition will be a performance given by Philip Napier, and a reading by Sue Rainsford. Curated by Alison Pilkington and Cora Cummins, the exhibition is a collaboration involving artists Michelle Boyle, Janine Davidson, Mary A. Fitzgerald, Emma Finucane, Cathy Henderson, Robert Ballagh, Sophie Carroll Hunt, Mo Levy, Maeve Lynch, Marcus Oakley, Sarah Pierce and Lee Welch. Facebook event here.

Friday, 22 January – Jan Pleitner: Water for the Tribe, 18:00, Free, Kerlin Gallery

Jan Pleitner’s paintings are vibrant, full of movement and saturated colour that alternately bleeds or is layered thickly, with zigzags that scratch or form deeper cuts. The gaze is not so much drawn in as it is thrust towards different paths that fight for attention. Referencing, in its title, Frank Herbert’s Dune, the intensity of Pleitner’s collection reflects, on one hand the dizzying pace of the physical world as well as his durational approach to painting. His palette, meanwhile, is otherworldly. Facebook event here.

Saturday, 23 January – Un Chant d’Amour and L’Age D’Or, 13:30, €8.60, Irish Film Institute

IMMA is collaborating with the IFI on a weekend-long film series for the What We Call Love exhibition. Saturday afternoon sees a double billing of Jean Genet’s only film, the long-banned Un Chant d’Amour, and Luis Buñuel’s surrealist Dalí collaboration, L’Age d’Or. Genet’s explicit silent film (with cinematography by Jean Cocteau) presents the passionate but unconsummated relationship between two prisoners, witnessed by a voyeuristic prison guard. L’Age d’Or, meanwhile, was one of the first sound films to be made in France, and tracks one couple’s attempts at consummating their relationship in the face of the bourgeois structures and absurdities of modern life. FB event here, IFI’s site here.

Sunday, 24 January – Spice Sing Along, 19:30, €5, MVP

Aoife McElwain of Forkful fame is following up a slew of massive nostalgia-inducing singalongs with a paean to the most iconised girl band there has ever been. Obtain some white PVC platforms (perhaps lose the Union Jack minidress), relive the glory days and begin practicing the “Stop” dance immediately. Facebook event here.

Monday, 25 January – The Danish Girl, 15:40, €7.50, Lighthouse Cinema

Tom Hooper’s The Danish Girl is an interpretative portrayal of artist and transgender pioneer Einar Wegener, played by Eddie Redmayne, about to undergo gender reassignment in the early twentieth century, then becoming Lili Elbe. As with The King’s Speech and Les Misérables, Hooper has a highly recognisable aesthetic, as well as the emotional core of individual struggle. Tickets here.

Tuesday, 26 January – The Noise Upstairs – The Night of Infinite Sadness, 19:00, Free, Chaplin’s Bar

Are you constantly being booed offstage for bringing down the mood? Have your friends stopped inviting you to things because you are so desperately grim? Let your melancholy loose at the first Noise Upstairs of the year. There’ll be a sign-up sheet and open slots of five to ten minutes, and performances from Tebi Rex and Mark Ward. Facebook event here.