ARTS OVER BORDERS & DORANBROWNE
ARTS OVER BORDERS is Ireland’s presenting body for cross-border arts festivals. DORANBROWNE (Seán Doran and Liam Browne) are its founding Artistic Directors.
In 2012, Seán Doran (www.seandoran.co.uk) created the Bio-Festival model, also the model that led to ULYSSES European Odyssey 2022-2024, an 18 European city project for which AOB is the Lead Artistic Partner (www.ulysseseurope.eu).
The Bio-Festival is a bespoke format which takes its inspiration from the genius of a single artist’s work (or a single artwork) and their association with place. AOB’s work is curated with an innovative contemporary sense of place, both rural & urban, throughout border communities and landscapes – In Ireland what AOB now call the northern literary lands of its 11 border counties.
ARTS OVER BORDERS has presented 13 cross-border literary multi-arts festivals in Ireland from 2012-2022 including the internationally acclaimed Happy Days Enniskillen International Beckett Festival which brought The Berliner Ensemble to Ireland for the first time (since 1939) with Georg Tabori’s infamous Warten Auf Godot and involved other international artists including theatre directors Robert Wilson, Peter Stein and Max Stafford Clark, actors Toby Jones, Klaus Maria Brandauer, choreographers Merce Cunningham, Maguy Marin and Mark Morris and the work of visual artists Antony Gormley, Tacita Dean, Joseph Kosuth and Steve McQueen. Other AOB Irish festivals have included A Wilde Weekend in Enniskillen and the Lughnasa FrielFest celebrating the work of playwright Brian Friel (1929-2015) in Donegal & Derry that has involved in the past actors Maxine Peake, Imogen Stubbs, Alex Jennings and Tamsin Greig among others.
As DORANBROWNE, AOB’s Artistic Directors curated the Seamus Heaney HomePLace Opening Year Programme (2016/17), Liverpool’s Sgt. Pepper @ 50 Festival (2017) commissioned by Liverpool City Council and f r a g m e n t s The Waste Land Official Centenary Festival across 22 churches in the City of London in April 2022 (www.thewasteland2022.com).
ARTS OVER BORDERS ~ Artist Honorary Patrons
Laurie Anderson
John Banville
Kevin Barry
Ciaran Carson
Roma Downey
Adrian Dunbar
Lisa Dwan
Roy Foster
Philip Glass
Nick Laird
Eimear McBride
Lisa McInerney
Sinead Morrissey
Paul Muldoon
Ohad Naharin
Glenn Patterson
Tom Paulin
Fiona Shaw
Raja Shehadeh
Colm Toibin
Robert Wilson
ARTS OVER BORDERS ~ Board of Trustees
Co-Chairs
Mary Heaney
Paul Sternberg
Trustees
Carlo Gebler
Oliver O’Connor
Peter Espenhahn
William Morrison
Jer O Mahony
Orla Constant
Nessa McGill
ARTS OVER BORDERS ~ Festival Staff
Festival Manager (Happy Days): Sally Rees
Festival Manager (Lughnasa FrielFest): Jonathan Burgess
Programme Design: Keith Connolly, Tonic Design
Our thanks to
Monsignor Peter O’Reilly
Dean Kenneth Hall
John Graham
Barbara Johnston
Heather White
Enniskillen Royal Grammar
Lord Brookeborough
Jimmy Rogers
Ian Davidson
Bryony May
Hazel Johnson & the Jolly Sandwich
Marty Melarkey
Warehouse Café
Mark Lusby
Others: Orla Constant,
Nessa McGill
Fr. Donoghue, Glenties
Patricia McBride
Traolach O’Fionnain
