Dumbworld

Dumbworld is an artist-led multidisciplinary creative production studio and registered arts charity based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Established in 2009 by composer Brian Irvine and writer, librettist and director John McIlduff, it brings together music, moving image, performance and the spoken word. Its work crosses contemporary opera, documentary filmmaking, animation, interactive media and public art.

The studio develops projects for theatres, concert spaces, festivals and unexpected public settings. Its productions range from orchestral and choral works to street art operas, animated video games and site-specific digital installations. Composition, artistic direction, staging, screen production and community participation form connected parts of its practice, allowing projects to combine live performance with recorded sound, film and digital imagery.

Community co-creation is central to that approach. Dumbworld works with young people, refugee groups, cancer support choirs and primary school children, bringing participants into the authorship of projects alongside professional artists and ensembles. Collaborators include the Ulster Orchestra, Irish National Opera and Red Note Ensemble. The company's work has been presented in more than 30 countries, including festivals and cultural venues across Europe, North America and Latin America.

Work across disciplines

The Scorched Earth Trilogy uses street art opera to address the climate crisis through performances projected onto urban walls. A Children's Guide to Anarchy combines animated posters with a musical manifesto developed with schoolchildren. A New Topography of Love explores opera through an animated video game, while A Different Wolf brings the form into dance through collaboration with Junk Ensemble.

Its screen work includes co-production of Alessandra Celesia's feature documentary The Flats. Other projects connect large-scale participation with performance: NEST combined donated objects and a community choir for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad, while How We Stand… How We Breathe brought together music, video and participants from across Northern Ireland. This breadth reflects a practice built around collaboration between artistic disciplines and the communities involved in making each work.