Acting Up! is a professional early years arts events provider. Lead artist Cliodhna Noonan is currently YPCE artist in residence in ATU Galway and Mayo, supported by the Arts Council, Artist in residence in Axis Ballymun; Artist on First Steps theatre and early years storytelling in Dublin's NEIC supported by Dublin City Council. She campaigns and networks for the provision of high quality arts and culture activities for all early years children. Acting Up! is a member of the smallsize EU network association (www.smallsize.org) and Assitej - TYA Ireland.(http://www.tya-ireland.org)
Acting Up! services:
1. Vintage Voices – Stories and Songs for 0-3 years and their carers. Come along on a regular basis and enjoy a moment of warm communication through the arts with your very young child. Since October 2020 Vintage Voices weekly sessions have gone online! The idea being that any new parent who is feeling isolated during lockdown can watch and share some creative moments with their new babies. And indeed anyone missing toddler groups can sing along and join in the homemade story fun!
2. Early years first time theatre performances Mora, Trolland, Silver Tree, Dreamtrain (supported by the small size EU network seed fund). All performances are suitable for festivals, inside crèche spaces and non theatre venues.
3. Storytelling experiences for families of children with special needs and children with autism. From 2018-2020, Acting Up! has toured library spaces extensively in Fingal delivering performance storytelling suitable for these audiences for the first time. Cliodhna Noonan of Acting Up! is trained as an SNA (level 6) and is researching further sessions for this target group.
4. Festival organisation and programming. Acting Up! has founded and programmed two international early years festival projects. Labas! Festival in Lithuania in partnership with Teatriukas. And Grasshoppers Festival in Balbriggan in partnership with Our Balbriggan, Fingal County Council and the Arts Council.