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OUR ARTISTS
Anna Jansson
Leeside Promenade
Twenty-year old Anna Jansson is a violin student of Katherine Hunka and is currently in her second year of her bachelor's degree at Cork School of Music, MTU. She began learning traditional music with Marian Collins in Ballincollig Comhaltas, and subsequently with Caroline Ní Chathasaigh. Both classically and traditionally trained, she is a multiple prizewinner in Ireland having competed as a soloist, and in groups, in festivals such as the Fleadh Cheoil, Feis Ceoil, and Feis Maitiu. Anna has also performed in venues abroad, both in Austria and New York, and plans to spend the third year of her course studying on an Erasmus in Graz, Austria. A committed chamber musician, she enjoys playing in ensembles and orchestras, and has been a member of multiple orchestras throughout the country, including the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland and the Ulster Youth Orchestra. Anna is also an accomplished piano player, having studied previously with Mary Beattie at Cork School of Music.
Sammy Hovhannisyan
Leeside Promenade
At 21, Samvel Hovhannisyan is not just an Armenian drummer with a flair for rhythm, but also a diligent student at University College Cork. His musical saga commenced with the Barrack Street Youth Band, leading to performances in the St. Patrick’s Day parade and for the President of Ireland. His tenure with Rebel Brass saw him perform in front of thousands and on the Late Late Toy Show. In Cork city, he drummed with Violet Club at various venues and university events. Currently, with his band Smithereens, he’s writing original music and celebrating a recent Battle of the Bands victory.
Bríain Cott
Leeside Promenade
Bríain Cott is a first-year student at the Cork School of Music, MTU, pursuing studies in trumpet. He began playing the trumpet at the age of 8 with the Midleton Concert Band and has since performed with prestigious ensembles such as the National Youth Orchestra, the Ulster Youth Orchestra, and various other orchestras and ensembles throughout Ireland.
Eimear Hallahan
Leeside Promenade
Eimear Hallahan first began playing the saxophone at age ten through Music Generation and the Cork Barrack Street Brass Band. She later joined Rebel Brass, a well known local group performing at events all over Cork, such as the Cork Jazz Festival and beyond. Eimear is currently in the first year of her Bachelor of Music degree at Cork School of Music, MTU. Since commencing her degree, she has found delight in performing both within and beyond the confines of her college, broadening her musical horizons.
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Sam Healy
Leeside Promenade
Samuel Healy is a 19 year old producer and multi-instrumentalist from Cork city currently studying a Bachelors in Popular Music at Cork School of Music, MTU. Sam works in original music, and has also worked as a session musician with many artists over the last few years. Aside from his wide contributions to other artist’s records, all of whom are respectively making waves on the Irish scene, Sam is an artist in his own right. Recent engagements include a Jazz weekend gig at the Everyman Theatre with his own band.
Bhavana Anand
Leeside Promenade
Bhavana Anand is an accomplished dancer, choreographer and founder of Urdhva School of Art and Culture. She holds vidwat in bharatanatyam and kuchipudi as well as a diploma in yoga training. Having performed more than 1,000 shows, Bhavana Anand takes pride in performance and has given a number of bharatanatyam and kuchipudi recitals at various dance festivals both within the country and internationally. She has performed at Hampi Utsav, Kadambotsava, Mysore Dasara, Khajuraho National Festival, and Kannada Sahitya Sammelana. Additionally, she has performed in both Bahrain and Dubai and has bagged first and second prizes at various competitions conducted by Kannada and cultural organisations associated with the government of India. She holds many titles including ‘The Bird of Paradise’, ‘Natyavisharada’, and ‘Prathibha Prapoona’.
Stephanie Keane
Leeside Promenade
Stephanie Keane, who hails from Limerick, is an Irish traditional dance artist, performer, choreographer and filmmaker. She has developed her own unique style of Irish dance through her passion for Irish traditional music, sean nós dancing and sound exploration. She continues to evolve as an artist, working on projects and collaborations that develop the musicality of sean nós dance and she has a deep appreciation for the nuances of this old style dance. Her most recent work, a short dance film called Éist, was awarded Grand Prize at the Cannes dance film festival in 2023.
Mexicanos en Cork
Leeside Promenade
The Mexican Community in Cork has actively promoted Mexican topics in Ireland since 2002. Their main objective is to share with Irish society the many positive aspects of their country, its traditions, its history, and its people. Facing a bleak image of their homeland, portrayed by the global media, their wish is to share their side of the story - a story of a country of hard-working men and women fighting for a common good. In the process, they also intend to show their appreciation for the warm welcome their members have received on this island. Over the years, their activities have developed and they now also look to strengthen their support networks and to address common local concerns by engaging and facilitating collaborations with other community groups. Formed by only a few families in the year 2000, today their community is made up of more than 300 individuals. Their core group consists of settled families and individuals, with a variety of smaller groups whose activities interlink: entrepreneurs, the artists from the creative group, dancers and musicians.
Snatch Comedy
Leeside Promenade
Snatch Comedy Improv is the longest-running improv group in Ireland outside of Dublin. The show consists of sketches and scenes that are made up on the spot using audience suggestions as inspiration. The show is driven by audience participation and the element of surprise and pressure that comes from real, great improv. They perform once a month in The Roundy with some of their regulars returning every week, because the show is never that same twice, even after all this time! They have played in venues large and small, from pub to theatre to cowshed to houseboat and have been at Improv festivals in Finland and Amsterdam. All material is guaranteed to be completely improvised and they have developed various unique formats as well as teaching improv skills to others. Snatch Comedy are delighted to be participating in CurrentLee, using suggestions provided by primary school students answering the question “What do you imagine Cork will look like in the year 2050?” as the basis for their performance.
John Bastow
Maker's Den
John Bastow is a Lino Print artist based in his home studio in Kinsale. Self-taught, he has been Lino Printing for around 15 years and focuses mainly on monochrome designs. His design approach is to reduce an image down to its simplest form and look for the light and shade, the positive and the negative, repeating patterns and to create simple, graphic style prints. Lino printing is a technique where a sheet of linoleum is used as a relief surface. You carve a mirror image of your design into the surface of the lino. The uncarved areas are then inked with a roller and printed onto handmade paper to create the final image. He is a proud member of Cork Craft and Design and has been involved in many exhibitions, fairs and workshops over the years
Aleesha Wiegandt
Maker's Den
Aleesha Wiegandt is a multi-disciplinary artist, poet and youth worker from West Cork. She is the founder of Colláis Chorcaí, a community collage group that meets bimonthly in @rebelreadscork bookshop. In her artistic endeavours, she combines her background in environmental activism, her academic background in politics and her life-long pursuit of self-understanding to explore themes of radical love, ecological breakdown, queer perspectives and entanglement. As a space-holder and youth worker, Aleesha is always seeking to encourage those she works with to explore their creativity from a place of gentle curiosity. It is her hope that from this space, they might discover a new understanding about themselves or the way that they see the world, or simply finding joy in their own expression.
Hannah Lane
See Memories Attached
Hannah Lane is a Cork based set designer for film, television and theatre. Her theatre credits include set designing “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller (The Everyman) ‘A Safe Passage’ by Irene Kelleher (The Firkin Crane,), “Chatroom” by Enda Walsh (Cork Arts Theatre), “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” by Rachel Sheinkin (MTU Musical Society) and “12 Angry Men” by Reginald Rose (Cork Opera House). She was also Associate designer on the Cork Opera House Proms, Scenic artist on “I Fall Down: A Restoration Comedy” by Gina Moxley and Assistant set designer for The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams (The Everyman). She is currently designing several shows including A Safe Passage (Cork Arts Theatre), ‘The Cripple Of Inishmann’ (Cork Opera House) and the Cork Opera House Proms 2024. Her Television credits include Production designing and set dressing “De Valera I Meiriceá” (TG4/RTÉ), “Cogadh ar Mhná”, “Eipidéim” (TG4), “74 Days: The Hunger Strike of Terence McSwiney” and “Forgotten: The Widows of the Irish Revolution” (RTÉ). Her most recent work, “Croíthe Radacacha” (TG4) had its premiere at the Galway Film Fleadh 2023 before airing later in the year and she most recently wrapped ‘De Valera san Fhásach’ (TG4). Hannah has also production designed over two dozen short films and was recently nominated for ‘Best Set Design’ at the Milan Short Film Festival 2023.
John McCarthy
Cork's Corner
John McCarthy is a theatre artist living and making work in Cork. He writes plays and musicals and performs in both. Recent writing includes "HUMANS: a robot musical" (Graffiti, Everyman) and The BelleVue (co-winner of the Pavilion Play Platform). John was the inaugural Theatre Artist in Residence at Cork Opera House-UCC 2018 - 2020. He is a mentor on the Young Playwrights Programme in Cork, and creator of Hammergrin's In Darkness Vast and was nominated Best Supporting Actor at the 2019 Irish Theatre Awards. John wrote Stage Irish, which won the Writers Guild of Great Britain Playwrights Progress Award 2014 and co-wrote Hollander, nominated Best Production at the Irish Theatre Awards.
Emily Donoghue
Cork's Corner
Emily Donoghue is a musician, theatre performer and composer from Galway. Kaleidoscopic folk soundscapes and a fierce passion for detail have defined Donoghue's musical path thus far. Gigging nationally and abroad from the age of 12, then quickly progressing into theatre work as a teenager, she currently splits her time working as a touring session musician with various bands (TOUCAN, Billow Wood, Paddy Dennehy) and in the theatre world alongside companies like Decadent (Vernon God Little, Every Brilliant Thing), Graffiti (Humans: A robot musical), BrokenCrow (Our Tethered Kin) and most recently with John and Katrina, occupying once again the weird and wonderful little corner of SNUG. When not working, she can usually be found making something - be it cooking, welding, sewing or constructing DIY instruments to use for her sound design and compositions.
Maeve O'Keefe
Cork's Corner
Maeve O’Keeffe of Frazzled Mammy Art is an Illustrator, Art Tutor and freelance journalist. She does personalised caricatures and painting commissions for corporate, retirement and birthday gifts. She teaches children’s after-school art in a self-employed capacity and has taught adult education night art classes for the ETB. For 10 years she wrote and illustrated a weekly column on family life and being a ‘Frazzled Mammy’ for the Cork Evening Echo’s WOW (Women on Wednesday) supplement. Examples of her work can be seen on www.frazzledmammy.com She wrote two stories for the ‘Cork Monster Comic’, an anthology of comic book tales launched at the 2017 Cork Shandon Dragon Festival. With sponsorship from Glounthaune Tidy Towns and Cork County Council Creative Communities Scheme, Maeve coordinated a community Arts project where local people were invited to write and illustrate a short story through a series of art and creative writing classes, which Maeve taught. The anthology ‘Our Stories’ was published and launched in June 2018. Commissioned by Glounthaune Tidy Towns and Community Association, Maeve designed and painted a mural of local birdlife in Glounthaune railway station in July 2019, with further public artwork commissions in 2023.
j.j.f
Cork's Corner
Jason Fisher is originally from Texas, but has been in Cork for over a decade. You can currently find him roaming around Ireland, doing gigs at whatever venue will have him. He also co-hosts the popular poetry night Prose & Woes.
Promenade
Cork's Corner
Promenade provides artists and organisations with strategic and creative project support to help reach their goals and aspirations in the field of circus, participatory arts, public arts, multi-disciplinary arts, spectacle and street arts. Our ambition is to support artists to create incredible new arts experiences in Ireland's public places and unusual spaces creating work that is unexpected, relevant and contemporary, impacting positively on people’s lives. We build Irish and International partnerships presenting high quality and ambitious arts experiences & work with the next generation of producers and artists, providing training and mentoring to support their career development.
