The performance is intended to take place in a semi-urban landscape where authentic reindeer might also visit. The participants of Reindeer Safari form a herd, which moves according the natural rules that correspond to the group behavior of reindeer. The herd decides autonomously on its itinerary and the rhythm of its wayfaring. For example, one of the rules is that the participants are not aloud to chat – reindeer are very quiet animals, and they utter sounds only to inform the herd when extremely threatened.

The activities of a reindeer herd can be roughly divided into two different periods: wayfaring and pasturing. Food is provided for participants on natural pasturing rests. While wayfaring the reindeer always seeks the most flat and easy route. When reindeer are in peaceful area they often co-operate in an admirable discipline. The reindeer drift generally in a queue, silently and without attracting any attention, leaving only narrow paths behind.

The members of the organizing group survey the wayfaring, document it, and take care of the needs of participants. The goal is to restore the urban landscape to a state of nature by observing it from the point of view of a semi-domestic, semi-wild herd animal – a reindeer. The transition from human experience into reindeer experience is acquired step-by-step.

Read Lotus Lykke’s artickle “My Neigbourhood from a Reindeer Perspective” (pdf)

Hi folks, Working as a collective is proven to be better for us and I like to consider myself a practitioner rather than a preacher of good practices based on what I believe are our natural values. Through the organisation we're combining arts and environmental activism or "artivism" so I'm networking and learning from others and then weaving these different strands into participatory performances that we share with tourists and locals. We'd like to empower people to become actively responsible for themselves rather than leaving it up to representatives to lead them on a passive cathartic journey.

I believe it's a combination of experiences that shape us: Culture and Environment are at the heart of our phenomenological existence but I feel like we're in the dark about the natural world or the nature of our own fragile existence. Nature will regenerate but we have a finite existence and our dependence on the planet to sustain us is my concern as we increase in numbers and its time we started thinking like John Gray says in Straw Dogs, thoughts on humans and other animals, about the Gaia hypothesis - 'the theory that the Earth is a self-regulating system whose behaviour resembles in some ways that of an organism - embodies the most rigorous scientific naturalism...For Gaia, human life has no more meaning that the life of a slime mould.' 

Now I'm not expecting people to be walking and talking existentialism but there is a relationship between the leisure industry and labour and we're often striving to attain things to make us happy when if we slowed down, looked around and took time to smell the roses we may discover we would be happier living frugally and consuming less. I'm as guilty as anybody of being a consumer and finding excuses to buy new toys but I hope that with these toys I can show people some of the beautiful spaces and places in the west of Ireland and take us on participatory performance to awaken our conscience. 

I'd like our festival and organisation to be an uplifting performer that moves people to want to be creative and continue striving not to strive too much to make the world a better place. 

We need to bear in mind that the majority of people don't sit around writing articles about our performance footprint or discussing poetry or literature unless they're into it and if we want to persuade you or others that the arts is food for the soul then we need to create some of connection to effectively communicate with you. So I guess this is an appeal to you to participate and tell us what you think of our performances.

The Arts are a means of communicating our feelings and also self-discovery. The work that most moves us is simply truthful and often a little risky.There is a sense of intimacy and vulnerability that creates a sense of empathy with the person who is courageous enough to be expose themselves warts and all. It doesn't have to be polished to perfection. Truth shines out and a good storyteller captures that truth, which is beauty.

Truth or Intimacy are themes that interest me because I rarely feel I am honest or intimate with people at the level I'd like to be. A natural reserve grows wild and free and yet remains trapped within me. Though all the world's a stage, the theatrical stage may be the only place to actually perform and discover something new about ourselves  in the presence of the spectators or witnesses. 

The hardest part is not the delivery but the  uncertainty of reciprocity. Living rurally does not prevent one from flourishing or creating the kind of work that may not always be appreciated but the point of performing for an audience whom we interact with daily and who don't necessarily share the same vision can be pretty challenging. But trying to create work to inspire people to see we have a shared responsibility to our community to act accordingly by participating in things that may not be our cup of tea makes it worthwhile.

We do what we do though how many of us really think about the consequence of our actions whether we are performing on stage or picking up a piece of litter in the street or tossing a cigarette butt on the floor. I live with my father who had Parkinson's and his punding drives me crazy at times. This is when he starts gathering things around him or picking things up and putting them in the strangest of places, which frustrates us all and often ends with us shouting at him, what are you doing?

His behaviour or actions are beyond his control as he’s on medication and suffers from a debilitating neurological disease. Not that it’s an excuse for everything he does or doesn’t do but I have less excuse for losing the rag with him when he seems to be willfully resisting his son controlling his actions.

So in this year of re-evolution we’ll be looking at what causes us to revolt for our independence and we’ll start by examining some of the things that lead to dis-ease within our communities. These theatrical performances are more to do with love than hate and our inability to communicate due to our culture and social taboos that force us to cope rather than share our troubles with our community until "the centre can no longer hold." It's only thence discover we are not alone and that we don't have to be all things to everybody but have faith in the strength of our community.

So we’re looking forward to recreating our sense of identity as part of a growing community of artists who dare to be different and explore new and unfamiliar territory for many of us. The only thing I can say for definite is that there will be tears of joy and sadness shed for ourselves. So come along. Joy will be found in our journey together and not only in reaching our destination. 

Flooding in its purest form involves forced, prolonged exposure to the actual stimulus that provoked the original trauma. 

In the mid-1960s, Thomas Stampfl, pioneered a technique called 'implosion therapy' to treat phobias. He found that phobic patients who were bombarded with detailed descriptions of the situations that they feared for six to nine continuous hours lost their fear of those situations. His research was expanded upon and refined by Zev Wanderer, who used biofeedback machines to monitor patients listening to verbal descriptions of what they most feared. By concentrating on the phrases that sparked the most intense reactions, Wanderer reduced the time needed for the first flooding session from nine hours to about two hours. Patients then returned for further sessions, usually as short as half an hour.

To increase the effectiveness of the therapy and shorten the time needed, Wanderer combined the in-office therapy with loop recordings of the phrases that were most likely to trigger the phobic reactions. His patients would take the tape recordings home and listen to them as 'homework'.

We have all witnessed if not personally experienced the flooding that has occurred this winter and spring and we are now inundated once again with politicians promising to alleviate our pains once we hand over the reigns of power to them to rule our world.

But what about taking a little more charge of our own lives and community by actually doing something ourselves? 

We’re born survivors but whether we thrive or not is up to us all. On this Spring awakening 1916 it has dawned on us once again that we are a nation struggling to survive in this climate of change.  as Freud or T.S. Eliot poetically put it.

“The way forward is the way back” to what may well be the only way we’ll regain a sense of natural balance with our environment be it political or natural. 

I’m talking about re-evolution and rebellion against the same oppressive powers that have dogged humanity since we crawled from the sea and began to breathe and breed and breed. 

There’s way to many of us rapacious creatures for nature to contend with so nature is fighting back by culling us once again through the spread of disease amongst us.

Don’t worry this is not all doom and gloom, its evolution and the sooner we learn to accept that, the sooner we’ll learn not to traumatise ourselves seeking solutions to the inevitable demise of our kind. By the way this is way, way, way in the future and by then we won’t even be thinking as we do now.

What we need to do now is live life and believe in the altruistic response of life itself to answer us.  Self-belief is more important than wishing things were different. So after our long winter of discontent it’s time to reawaken and fulfil our potential which has been hibernating and waiting impatiently to spring into action. 

We're interested in re-evolution in a transnational cultural context . through creative entertainment in relation to resource management and our carbon/performance footprint with everyday experts to shape local and European policy through festival events including live performances; exhibitions; films; documentaries; workshops and post-show panel discussions that address environmental concerns.

This is the third year we'll host The Non Prophet Festival 19=28 August 2016, as well as the ongoing events of a similar nature, such as films, talks, practical workshops, etc. throughout Mayo. The creative personnel involved are made up of various groups and organisations, involved in community arts, heritage and culture as well as full-time performing artists from our European community. 

Apart from our Arts Council additional funding is being sought from Claremorris Municipal District, Mayo Arts Office, Foras Na Gaeilge and our Finnish guests are seeking a travel grant in Finland as well as benefit in kind in the form of venues for exhibition, screenings & workshops from Clar IRD & Clar ICH.

This year's festival promises to continue to develop our growing community of participants and everyday experts in the many fields that interweave to make up our community.

Culture Night on Friday evening began much as it ended; with waves of greetings and laughter with our wonderful storytellers Colman O'Raghallaigh and Pat Keane, educating and entertaining us with their historic tour through the origins of the town and our ancestry.

Recording the event for posterity makes it difficult to participate and be present when viewing the proceedings through a tiny screen, though no footage can capture the atmosphere of a place and time than to actually follow in the footsteps of those who can talk of the history of these streets from personal experience. However well scripted and prepared our storytellers may be there is nothing like a live audience to offer their anecdotes and some spontaneity on our journey through the streets of Claremorris and how they have been transformed over the centuries.

Thanks to all those who participated. We're glad you appreciated our efforts, shown by your presence and the generosity of your praise, which makes it all worthwhile. Time flew or perhaps we were beguiled by the history, the music and the poetry of our community, delivered with wit, and so eloquently that if ever we needed a reason to revive our native language into our everyday speech we need look no further than what we witnessed within our own rural community on tripping tongues and harp strings that touched ours hearts and offered us hope for the future of our town and its family.

Long may it continue le cúnamh Dé.