Brought to you by Cork Midsummer Festival. 

When was the last time you stepped outside your comfort zone?

If we’re honest, most of us play it safe most of the time, but this year one of Cork’s most engaging festivals is extending an invitation to experience something brand new.

This June, Cork Midsummer will bring 12 days of exhilarating theatre, music and spectacle to Cork, with a feast of opportunities to see the city (and maybe yourself) in a completely different light.

From guided tours of unexpected places (led by unexpected guides) to an exercise in facing down your fear of failure and a chance to examine your very identity, the programme offers us a captivating peek into unchartered territory.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got, right?

Here are five intriguing events that will lure you somewhere new on a number of levels:

1. Sing Your Failures

Fitzgerald’s Park, June 24th-26th, 2022

Tickets: €10 here 

Contemporary performance artist Louise White spent three years learning how to sing, but what she really learned about was her crippling fear of failure. Sing Your Failures is a crash-test singing experience for a group of 20 people. The event invites participants to join Louise and her singing teacher to embrace the art of imperfection.

“Come and exist in the unknown for less than an hour, take your place in an impromptu untrained choir as it comes together in the middle of a park in Cork city,” they say.

Guaranteed to give performance anxiety the stiff middle finger.

2. Night walks with Teenagers

Meeting at Emmet Place, June 17th-19th, 2022

Tickets: €10/€15 here

Nightwalks With Teenagers is exactly that: an insightful and energetic walking tour of Cork city at night, designed and hosted by Cork teenagers, inviting adults to explore and experience the city through new eyes and in the company of young Cork people.

Presented by Canadian theatre company Mammalian Diving Reflex, the walking tour is created with Cork teenagers who plan, design and lead walks through the city at night, exploring the urban landscape and sharing their reality and perspectives.

3. Race Cards

June 15th to 19th, 21st to 25th, 2022, Lecture Theatre, Nano Nagle Place

Entry: Free, more details here

What is the long-term psychological impact of white supremacy on people of colour? Why do people assume that racism will just passively die out if we wait long enough? Are you black, or are you ‘new black’?

One room. One thousand questions, devised by Birmingham artist Selina Thompson, concerning issues of race and identity, will be numbered and displayed on a wall as part of this thought-provoking installation.

Cork Midsummer Festival invites you to visit the room and read these questions – and in return, you must answer just one.

Race Cards is “an invitation to start a conversation and exchange ideas about the complexities and intersections of identity, to ask questions of ourselves, and contribute to an archive of feelings, memories, and ideas that too often go unspoken.”

4. Beatbox Academy

June 15th and 16th, 2022, The Everyman, MacCurtain Street

Entry: Free, more details here

This is a special opportunity for 10-21-year-olds to learn the skills of beatboxing and perform at the Everyman – no experience necessary! Learn to beatbox, jam with other young musicians, improve your vocal techniques and make your own music using nothing but your mouth – from Hip Hop and Grime to R&B and Dubstep.

Led by hip-hop artist Conrad Murray, the workshops are free and all skill levels, whether you are new to singing and beatboxing or are a more experienced performer and beatboxer, are welcome.

5. After Light Dark Citizens 

June 23rd – 25th, 2022, 14 MacCurtain Street at sunset

Tickets: €15 / €10 here

Festival artist in residence Peter Power invites you to walk the streets of Cork city as night falls. Accompanied by an interactive audio score, you will encounter installations and events and discover the hidden citizenry and shadowy stories in the streets, the river, the architecture, and the night.

After Light: These Dark Citizens is a “meditation on the tensions of urban living, of decay and development, and our internal selves. A poetic ode to the city, it asks us to consider our roles as citizens in dark places, to contemplate the effects of design and architecture on the stories of our lives, and to question what a city really is.”

Can you find a new story in the dark?

Cork Midsummer Festival will stage 12 days of exhilarating theatre, electrifying music, and joyful spectacle in Cork from June 15th to 26th, 2022. To find out more, visit corkmidsummer.com.

You can view the full brochure here.