The Irish delegation at FRESH STREET#5, Circostrada’s flagship international conference, happening in Great Yarmouth on May 28/29/30, includes a diverse mix of artists, producers, and festival makers. Here we interview Con Horgan of Fanzini Productions based in County Cavan, and who will be performing in Great Yarmouth as part of this event.
Tell us a little about what it means to you as an Irish artist to perform at FRESH in Great Yarmouth?
It’s a joy, an honour and a great responsibility to be the only Irish company presenting work at Out There and Fresh Street! We absolutely love performing, connecting with audiences, making and presenting work. Our work is mostly non-verbal, so we can travel with the show really easily. We make comedically centered work and it’s always such a meaningful moment (and relief!) when audiences respond with laughter to our work.
Out There is an incredible festival. Great Yarmouth is a really fascinating place to host the festival; it has a faded glory atmosphere to it. It’s on the sea and there are some wonderful pitches to play. The programme is mind bogglingly vast, there are so many companies presenting work, it’s a very inspiring festival. And on top of that Fresh Street is happening here too, so we have the opportunity to meet with other artists, festival makers and programmers from across Europe and the UK.
You also direct and host the National Circus Festival of Ireland, can you tell us your perception of the Irish landscape?
It’s a fascinating time right now. The exponential growth of our sector is really positive.
The numbers of new artists coming into our sector is also wonderful. The public awareness of our art from is growing.
The work that the Arts Council and ISCAS have done on public engagement numbers and policy development are really powerful tools to advocate for our sector.
Our community has a really cohesive, supportive nature and that is something to be cherished and supported.
I think it is essential to support and nurture the development of new outdoor arts shows.
And we also urgently need a full-time circus school to foster, develop and keep our circus artists in Ireland.
How important is it to the Irish sector to build international connections and platforms?
It’s vital. We are an island off an island off the coast of Europe. Especially now in the frame of Brexit, we need to all need to develop our international connection and relationships. International touring and partnerships inspire our artists and festivals by seeing a new way of making and presenting work; by being inspired by a different world view, by different languages and opinions. These can then inform our own modes of expression and the generation of uniquely Irish work.