“This year we are all about bodies, bodies, bodies!”

Curator of Quarter Block Party’s Live Art programme, choreographer Ruairí O’Donovan is putting body positivity front and centre for the fifth edition of the festival.

The fifth edition of QBP will fill city venues, bars and outdoor spaces with life from Friday, February 8th to Sunday, February 10th, with over 130 of the freshest high-calibre artists in theatre, music, and dance.

“Join us for a celebration of flesh, welcoming the new, the political, and the sometimes overlooked, in a celebration of everything that makes us bold and beautiful.” says Ruairí.

And there’s plenty to see, from a performance by a nude mother and son, to a ‘fat rebellion’ by the British artists and writer Scottee.

1. GENDER RIP

Where: TBA

Quarter Block Party partner with CREATE to welcome GENDER.RIP as the festival’s Artists in Residence. Their Fully Automated Gender Luxury Oasis will provide ‘a free pop-up chill out space for all things TRANS, gender hacked, and queer’, so festival audiences can drop in for some decadent, ultra-pop respite between gigs and shows.

2. WHEN WE

Where: Triskel Arts Centre

Set in an austere world characterised by coded language, penetrating focus, and biting humour, Allie Hankins and Rachael Dichter skilfully utilise the expansive and charged moments between events to slowly reveal a world where tension is currency, mischief is sustenance, and surreality is a given.

3. NAKED BOYS READING

Where: Triskel Arts Centre

Are you brave enough to bare all for NAKED BOYS READING? Triskel Arts Centre will house a literary salon with Justin Hunt and curated by Cork author Caroline O’Donoghue. Here’s the open invitation: ‘People who identify as a boy, or wish to for an evening, are invited to apply to your kit off and get involved in the smartest, sexiest, textual intercourse, because boys just want to have fun!’

More on getting involved here. 

4. FAT BLOKES

Where: Firkin Crane

The critically acclaimed TimeOut Performer of the Year Scottee is guaranteed to bring the house down at The Firkin Crane with his show Fat Blokes. In his own words Fat Blokes is ‘about flab, double chins and getting your kit off in public’, uncovering why fat men are never portrayed as sexy but always as funny. Choreographed by Lea Anderson and several plus-sized male performers, including Scottee, this contemporary dance is a form of ‘fat rebellion’.

5. m/Other

Where: St. Peter’s, North Main Street

Ben and Gabi Kamino, a mother and son from Canada, will show us ‘what it means to be naked with beauty and touch’ in their duet m/Other. The dance is simple and challenging: together, naked, they touch each other and try to “not-feel”. In this, they hope the work stages many values and questions.

A Bundle Pass (three shows) is €25, Super Bundle Pass (six shows) €50, and individual show tickets are available from quarterblockparty.com.