Earlier this month, ISACS had the pleasure of interviewing Kath Gorman, Founder and Creative Director of Promenade Ireland. In this article, Kath shares insights into her fascinating career journey and the challenges and opportunities facing the Street Arts, Circus, and Spectacle sector.

Can you tell us about yourself and the start of your career? How did you get involved with Street Arts, Circus, and Spectacle?

After leaving Leicester University (majoring in Art History) I was a bit directionless; I’d been involved in the university’s theatre society doing behind the scenes type work such as stage management and promotion.

I knew I was interested in both the performing arts and visual arts worlds but pre-internet days it was harder to get a sense of the different types of roles you could do unless you knew people in the industry (which I didn’t).

After a year working at Next in Chester (living with university friends who had progressed to Chester Law School) I saw an advert for a training programme in London that would provide some marketing, project management skills etc plus time spent on a placement.  In return I would get an extra £10 per week in unemployment benefit through the British government’s Training for Work scheme.  So I successfully secured a place and headed down to London to live with friends and a boyfriend already there.

I subsequently found my own placement advertised in The Stage as an Administrator to co-run Springfield Theatre Club, a North London pub theatre (having found a book in the library on how to run a theatre so I was able to give a good interview!).

My fellow colleague at the pub theatre Shani Solomons had trained at École Philippe Gaulier and L’Ecole Jacques Lecoq.  She introduced me to the world of visual and physical theatre really exploded with amazing companies like David Glass Ensemble, Theatre Complicité,  Improbable Theatre and Peepolykus.  I also have memories of seeing Archaos in a tent on Clapham Common and Russian clown troupe Derevo at the Edinburgh Fringe who both totally blew my mind! Myself and Shani, in our wisdom ended up programming a 2 month season of mime and physical theatre persuading both artists and audiences to come up to the Northern end of the Piccadilly line.

I stayed at the pub theatre for a year.  From there, through contacts made I started working with a number of mime and physical theatre artists as their Administrator on a freelance basis before I went on to work for touring theatre company Red Shift.

Can you tell us about your involvement with Total Theatre Network?

I first became a member of Mime Action Group subsequently becoming a board member in the mid 1990’s.  I was quite green and so it was a great experience to learn the more strategic aspects of running an organisation.  This was added by the fact that there were some brilliant people on the board, such as Chenine Bhathena, Verena Cornwall and Alistair Spalding plus dynamic Director Mhora Samuels who have all subsequently taken up senior roles in the arts (Verena was a previous Street Arts, Circus and Spectacle Adviser for the Arts Council of Ireland and is a current board member of Waterford Spraoi) .

It was a dynamic time for Mime Action Group and who in early 1997 adopted the new name of Total Theatre (voted by the members) to reflect the growth and diverse range of work encompassing mime, physical theatre & visual performance, much of which was now considered ‘mainstream’.  For a small membership based organisation Total Theatre provided advocacy for the UK sector, regional focus specials, training reports, spotlights on different artforms and practices.  There were also seminars, conferences and residencies.  The main focus of Total Theatre was through its sectoral magazine, of which I was a member of the Editorial Group for a while.  Another key initiative during this period was the establishment of the Total Theatre Awards at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, in response to artists devising work not eligible to apply to Fringe First Awards.  I was a member of the inaugural awards steering group, with the awards led and produced by Chenine Bhathena and Leila Jancovich.  The first awards took place in 1997, with Steven Berkoff being honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award and continued to run until 2023.

For those interested in learning more about the history of Total Theatre see here for more details plus a fascinating archive of past magazines and artist features and for here about past Total Theatre award winners.

Now, focusing on the present, can you please tell us how Promenade originated?

During the pandemic like many people it was a moment to reflect; I was starting to think about the future and what the rest of my career might look like.  I also had a window of opportunity in 2021 where our eldest daughter had just graduated from college so with less outgoings we could afford for me to take a risk on having reduced income and set up my own company before our next daughter would be going to college.  I’ve had a varied career, working in touring theatre, community arts, venue and festivals here in Ireland and the UK.  I have always kept that passion for physical based performance, circus, street arts and work in the public realm which was reflected in my programming and producing.  For example, I had produced some immensely meaningful site-specific projects whilst Head of Participation and Engagement at Cork Midsummer Festival, such as La Cocina Pública (Teatro Container) and I Can Colour Between the Lines (Mark Storor & Stephen King/residents of Knocknaheeny).

It was also clear that Ireland’s circus, street arts and spectacle sector was growing fast, thanks to additional investment from the Arts Council and the advocacy and nurturing provided by ISACS.  So I set up Promenade during 2021 having left Cork Midsummer Festival to bring my experience of producing, fundraising and strategic management along with the aspiration to play a part in helping the sector continue to flourish.

I had met my brilliant colleague and fellow Producer Ciara O’Mahony whilst at Cork Midsummer and invited her on board in early 2022 where we started to work on a number of tendered projects together, such as the Arts Council’s Circus Building Infrastructure Study with fellow colleagues Ian Brown and Rachel Clare (Crying Out Loud).

The company recently secured funding from The Arts Council of Ireland. How is that going to impact the sector?

We have been extremely fortunate to secure funding from the Arts Council’s Creative Production Support scheme for 2024 & 2025. These activities were designed on proven need from industry feedback and our own research.

The need for more producing supports was a key sectoral issue identified by artists in Cork City Council and ISACS 2021 Streets Ahead programme, which I attended, resulting in a working party set up by some of us in the sector.

We also carried out our own mapping of the producer field in Ireland particularly for CSAS, with over 50% of respondents identifying as artist self-producers.  We know there are some great producers out there committed to the sector but they are in short supply.

With this in mind the key aspects of our Creative Production activities are both artist and producer focused.  A critical goal is to support our artists to have viable artistic careers that provide longevity, satisfaction, meaning as well as stable and diverse income sources.  This is in tandem with building a more skilled, connected, networked, diverse and better resourced Producer field for the sector.

With an expanded team of 3 Producers including fantastic Producer Alex Maronna who joined us this year we are providing 10 artists/companies, both experienced and emerging with a range of advisory producing, production and artistic supports from experts and partner resources.  The focus is on filling the gaps before projects start and before they end such as: strategic planning & support with artist career planning, support with idea development and helping build budgets for new projects, support with funding applications/bids/other opportunities, looking at the lifecycle of artist projects including tour booking and promoter contact, partnership brokering & building networks, assistance with specific plans, e.g. public engagement strategies, advice on policies, contracts, human resources etc.  We also offer a whole range of expert advisory supports and resources in production and logistics, dramaturgy, artistic outside eye, environmental expertise, communications & PR plus partner residency space from Circus Factory and The Everyman Theatre.

The artists and companies benefiting from our CPS programme are Aidan Ring, Candy Warhol, Fanzini Productions, Gill Byrne, Elisa Gallo Rosso, Lidija Šola, Moss, Matt Szcerek/Kundle Cru, Twisted Lane Productions and VolkiDána, 5 of whom were selected by Open Call and the other 5 artists already working with us.  More details coming on our website soon…

Our producer focused activities consist of 3 activities:

  • Future Producers: a producer training, mentoring and placement opportunity for 4 individuals with some experience in circus, street arts and spectacle.  This year’s producers are Karen Aguiar, Aoife Maguire, Ciara Moloughney and Aysegul Yuzel selected by Open Call.  Future Producers was piloted in 2023 thanks to Fidget Feet’s initiation with funding from an Arts Council Capacity Building Award.  It is delivered by Promenade and Split Second (UK circus producers) as training and mentoring providers, in collaboration with delivery partners Fidget Feet, National Circus Festival of Ireland, Macnas, Spraoi and ISACS.  We will be launching another Open Call in the coming months for Future Producers 2025.
  • Trainee Event Producer programme: in partnership with Galway Traveller Movement and Misléor Festival of Nomadic Cultures where 3 people were selected by application process to be trainee event producers: Bernie McDonagh, Winnie Mongan and Winnie Stokes.  They receive coaching, mentoring and on the job training and wider introductions to the arts field especially the circus, street arts and spectacle sector.  They have providing production and producing support to a variety of events/organisations such as World Circus Day in Somers Park, Castlerea, Misléor Festival of Nomadic Cultures and Fidget Feet.
  • Producer Network activities: consisting of in-person producer focused Industry events in partnership with partner festivals (Daring Dames, Pitch’d Circus & Street Arts Festival and National Circus Festival during 2024) on relevant topics to producing, online Action Learning sessions, 20 micro-bursaries to Promenade’s Industry events & ISACS hosted events, Producer public database which producers of any arts discipline can submit their details, anyone in our network can avail of ISACS online training sessions for free plus one to one online mentoring sessions via Promenade producing team plus other expert Producers (over 40 held this year).

 

What are Promenade’s ambitions and visions for the sector’s future? And what do you think the sector needs are?

That’s a big question!

I know the first response of course is usually more funding.  However, I think we also have to look at different income models where artists are able to build a multitude of income sources that is not totally reliant on the annual round of Arts Council bursaries and project awards etc.  There’s great potential for following the example of some CSAS artists and arts organisations including our partners who are already very good at generating different types of income, for example, through generating work via corporate activities, passive income sources, European funding and local authority tendered commissions.

There’s still more work to do on educating audiences, the wider arts sector and other sectors such as the business community to help continuing to raise the status, respect and profile of circus, street arts and spectacle.  We know that there are some amazing organisations in CSAS who have been instrumental in long-term building audiences for this work such as Fidget Feet, Macnas and Spraoi.  A number of us have been discussing the need for an audience and production development initiative for venues programming circus, for example, such as UK pioneering producers Crying Out Loud’s past City Circ intiative that introduced programmers and producers to more experimental circus. I’d also love to see a similar ‘Total Theatre’ type award in Ireland which could include a partnership with members of the business community.

More investment in circus building infrastructure is critical and it is exciting to hear where local authorities are taking notice of the report in their future plans for new buildings.  In tandem, with this I’d like to see more skilled and experienced Producers working in the field that are able to support the activities described above.

We are already starting to see legacies coming from our 2023 and 2024 programmer with our cohort of producers making significant strides in their careers which is very heartening to see.

We know that there’s always more work to be done; the Circus, Street Arts and Spectacle field in Ireland is full of some of the smartest and most talented individuals I have met, resilient, entrepreneurial and creative, committed in bringing work to the widest and most diverse audiences.    One of the sector’s key strengths has always been its ability to pull together as a community; long may this continue!