The performer's pitch
The performer's pitch
Cormac Mohally, artistic director of Pitch’d Circus and Street Arts Festival, talks to T+D about a life in performance, why you should see Rollercoaster, and art versus entertainment.
For over twenty years, Cormac Mohally has honed the craft of street performance. On a journey which started with a skateboard on the streets of Cork, he has gone from entering circus school at the age of nineteen, to touring all over the world with shows he created, such as Lords of Strut and Captain C-Man.
In 2015 he was a founding member of the Circus Factory on Centre Park Road; a training and creation space for anyone with an interest in circus and street art, regardless of their age, level or career stage.
Now Mohally is the artistic director of Pitch’d Circus and Street Arts Festival, which is currently in its seventh year and hosting a wide range of performances and events across the city. T+D sat down to chat with him this week to discuss how it’s all been going so far, what people in Cork can look forward to this coming weekend and how he sees the future of circus and street performance in the city.
“We set up Pitch’d as a way of promoting contemporary circus, and a large part of that is feeding the ecology of the arts. So there’s a lot of crossover with other artforms and festivals.”
“Our producer and community engagement officer both work with Cork Indie Film Festival and this year we held a circus movie night in cooperation with them.”
“We’ve also been promoting two artists from Dublin Fringe Festival, one show Makosh is a preview and another one we have on is a rehearsal. So while there are artists from all over the world in the festival, it’s really important to us to be supporting the development of Irish work as well.”
“We also partnered with Douglas Street Business Association, so on Sunday the street will be closed off and they’ll have a load of events on as part of their Autumn Fest, which we’re a part of.”
While it can’t be easy attracting so many artists to the city and trying to showcase so much talent in just one week, Mohally makes light of the work involved.
“I like programming and giving people a platform. After I came out of circus school, I started off with the classic street show of juggling fire, but in my thirties I got to tour the world with Lords of Strut and I made a lot of connections and this has helped with Pitch’d a lot.”
“But sometimes arts festivals focus too much on international work and that doesn’t feed the local ecology-there’s that word again-but it’s so important to give local artists an opportunity to show their work.”
And with this local aspect in mind, how does Mohally feel about street performance in his hometown of Cork?
“I don’t see much street performance in Cork, I see buskers.”
“Cork City Council have three designated spots in the city for street performance; outside the opera house, which I don’t like so much because there are a lot of bollards and steps, outside Brown Thomas is another one and then on Grand Parade.”
“But you should be allowed to get a permit if you’re under twenty-five to perform, young people should just be allowed to do it.”
“I was stopped by the guards a lot in my twenties for begging or causing an obstruction. It can be difficult because as a street performer, you’ve got to be willing to go out and fail and you need the space to be able to do that.”
As with nearly every conversation with an artist these days, the changing face of the city centre comes under the microscope and Mohally is trying his best to rail against the prioritisation of business and commerce as much as possible.
“Unfortunately, the arts get pushed out by development in the city. I want to put a circus tent in the city centre and somewhere prominent like Kennedy Park, but the city council have said it would have to provide a free service to the public.”
“But the City Council rent for putting up tents is so expensive that the circus ends up going out to Kinsale or Middleton, which is good for those towns but a shame for Cork City because traditional circus tickets are cheap and bring in a diverse audience.”
Is Pitch’d then trying to fill a gap in the market and is Cork missing out on a big opportunity by not having more street performance in the city?
“Well, the festival has given us an outlet to engage people. If you can put art in front of people without them having to come through the door they are more likely to engage.”
“Like in Galway, there was a guy called Johnny Massacre, who was a friend of mine, and he had a big impact on street performance on Shop Street. He managed to convince people to come to Galway for the Arts Festival, but they also have the Macnas Parade and there’s a culture of welcomeness, which I’m not sure we have in Cork.”
“There is a fairly good arts scene here though; the Midsummer Festival is great and Mary Hickson does amazing work with Sounds from a Safe Harbor, but I wonder how much of an engagement there is from non-artists?”
“And this raises the question of how do you develop an audience?”
“A lot of people think that stage and dance schools are just pathways to a successful career, but the others who don’t progress end up being future audience members so it’s about educating people.”
Getting art in front of people is vital to what Pitch’d is all about and for Mohally, a wide audience means exactly that.
“We’ve kept prices cheap because everybody is feeling the pinch, so we said let’s make it as accessible to as many people as possible and not just because you have a disability.”
One show which definitely falls into this category is Wes Peden’s Rollercoaster which will be in the Firkin Crane on Saturday night. Peden is an internationally renowned artist and his shows are known to be spectacular.
“I’m very excited about Wes’s show. He’s just off the back of a run in Edinburgh Fringe Festival and it’ll be really interesting to see this show indoors. It’s being staged on the floor area because he throws so high.”
“He was voted best juggler multiple years in a row and his tricks are out of this world.”
Mohally’s passion for circus art and performance is obvious and it’s clear he has a genuine interest in helping other artists find their way in this precarious line of work. But as an artist himself first and foremost, he knows what it’s like to dedicate your life to making art and the trials and tribulations involved.
“I know a lot of people in circus arts who it’s not their full time job, it’s a hobby, which I get because it’s not liking playing a sport like camogie, there’s no winners or losers, because art is not competitive, but funding for the arts is and this creates problems.”
“But being an artist is a vocation. I started as a skateboarder and fell in love with juggling because of the trick satisfaction and I can see how circus art is interesting as a physical practice to people, but performing requires a leap.”
“There’s a big difference between entertainment and art and with street shows, if you’re not engaging people they will just walk away.”
“So we need to ask ourselves, where does culture come from and where does it disappear to?”
“And festivals are so important to give space to that.”
Pitch’d Circus and Street Arts Festival runs across the city until September 1. more info here. Tickets for Wes Peden’s show ROLLERCOASTER on Saturday August 31, 8pm in the Firkin Crane are available here