Wake: The Line-up

This year I finally christened my Belfast based underground festival of 40. The name I gave it was Wake.

A wake is a gathering that takes place between a death and a funeral. It traditionally takes place in the home of the one who has passed and helps those gathered to come to terms with the loss. A wake is a social event that allows a community to confront what has happened. Yet despite the seemingly depressing nature of a wake, they are a place of joy and connection, and well as remembrance and mourning.

Wake is a festival that marks the death of various cultural, political and religious gods that have impacted our lives. It is a festival that employs talks, music, mentalism, movies and art to help us come to terms with these deaths and say our farewells to the lifeless bodies that impacted us.

This year we’ve an amazing line up of musicians, thinkers, artists and activists to help us take this journey. Our speakers include the academics Katharine Sarah Moody and Barry Taylor, the authors Jay Bakker and Kester Brewin, and some local talent like BBC radio and television presenter William Crawley. In addition to this we’ll be joined by the hardcore grassroots hip hop artist Jun Tzu and the dark, sultry voice of Molly Sterling, who represented Ireland in the 2015 Eurovision song contest. We’ll also be doing a tour of C.S. Lewis’ homeland and exploring his work on grief. Add to that some mind bending mentalism from one of Ireland’s best young magicians – Joel MaWhinney – and more than a few pub crawls and you’ve got all the ingredients for an amazing four day wake.

There are only two tickets let. So, if you’d like to come, grab them now!

Jun Tzu

Molly Sterling