RTÉ brings Culture Night 2024 to RTÉ One on September 20th with a joyful celebration of our cultural landscape.
RTÉ Choice Music Prize winner Denise Chaila anchors RTÉ One's one-hour Culture Night special from The Round Room in Dublin's Mansion House, heading a line-up of exceptional performances which includes an appearance from acclaimed modern circus company Loosysmokes.
Below, programmer maker Donal Scannell visits Loosysmokes at their West Cork HQ, as things get hairy...
Do you believe in magic? Loosysmokes are magic. They make things appear out of thin air that were never there before but they aren't magicians, they are a circus troupe. Admittedly they’re not your typical circus troupe - and we’re not under canvas.
We’re in a field near Ballydehob in Co. Cork. A gorgeous field with a beautiful array of trees planted in a curved row.
This field is right beside Loosysmokes HQ, as founder Elaine McCague explains: "It's a very old garden that I came upon after I moved to this location. There's a magic sense about it. It's a really traditional Irish garden, it's got the moss, it's got the entangled vines, it's got the old trees, it's part orchard. That essence of this space always invokes something in the work that is magic."
The performance we’re about to film for RTE Celebrates Culture Night is part of what will ultimately be a bigger show, as Elaine explains, "The idea is that it's going to develop into a larger-scale site-specific work. it's always different. When you make site-specific work, it's like making a new work every time because you're responding to the site. We work collaboratively, so it's about working with the other performers or the other collaborators, whether it's musicians or lighting people or visual artists. It's about bouncing and responding off of everybody. There's a concept and ideas there, but it's a giant investigation with those people involved to bring the work together."
Investigations are what Elaine and Loosysmokes do well - and we’re here today to witness an invention that Elaine’s been working on through her research.
"Funding from the Arts Council has allowed us to take this major step", she says. "We're doing some research into a rare old form of circus discipline that's called 'hair suspension'. I have an invention that I created called 'Knotheads' that we have been experimenting with - it's a hair suspension from the end of the hair, where it involves a counterweight system. So the research is about melding those two forms together and seeing what happens. The initial stage of the research came from an Arts Council fund under the Circus Arts Grant. And then as part of RTÉ Celebrates Culture Night, we’re taking it further."
Elaine has assembled a hardy troupe of remarkable people to further this research: Lucía Fernández from Argentina, Imogen Macrae from England and Mimi Ke from the U.S. They have been camped out here for the fortnight before we arrive, putting themselves through unimaginable pain in the interests of entertaining us lesser mortals - which includes you, dear reader.
"Your viewers are not gonna understand what they're about to see. It's gonna challenge them."
"Lou, Imogen and Mimi have been working with me on 'Knotheads’, " explains Elaine. "The idea is that we lift objects and suspend objects, whereas Lou is suspending her own body from their hair! It's about taking this old form and investigating, and finding where circus is going in the future and the possibilities there. I'm interested in circus not necessarily in the traditional apparatus, but moving out of that and seeing what else can come. This investigation is about that, the visual aesthetic of that, and what that creates. And then the idea to meld the old within the new is where it's going."
These trees surrounding us (and some cables) are all Loosysmokes need to create their magic. Also, some really strong follicles and an evolved attitude towards pain.
Sometimes it’s hard to do justice in print to what’s been filmed for the TV, and rightly so. Loosysmokes need to be seen to be believed.
Elaine is motivated by creating fresh spectacle. She loves to put new, unexpected things before our eyes. Things that shouldn't be possible, but are.
She explains her philosophy: "Circus, it's based around the trick and a presentation of the trick. That's what circus is, versus dance or theatre. It's about endless and limitless possibilities, and being able to bring the body into the absurd space in a theatrical and dance way. So my work is interdisciplinary, it dips in and out of circus, theatre, dance, soundscape. It's anything and everything. It's site-specific and it's visceral and it's experiential. It's more about experience than the traditional aspect of entertainment. Your viewers are not gonna understand what they're about to see. It's gonna challenge them."
Imogen, freshly freed from being suspended from a tree, interjects: "It's like an exploration of something that's beyond what people might expect from circus. It's not about the spectacle of the trick, it's about creating this atmosphere, an otherworld that has narratives in it that you might not be certain of - it’s a dreamscape that has these characters in it - there's a moment where you see them as normal people and then there's this transformation into this otherworld space."
Mimi chips in: " I think it's also a sort of a meditation, in that it brings about a trance for us, and that is also something the audience experiences. It's very sensory and experiential."
Lou, who has to endure the most pain for our entertainment, offers her take. "It's not the same as feeling the pain", she explains, "It's like transportation - I go to another world to enable the suspension."
If all of this sounds intriguing yet disturbing, then that’s good, because the objective is to get you to watch Loosysmokes, to embrace them and let them into your world... because when you do, life will never be the same again.
Research under the Detached Project by Elaine Mc Cague, produced by Loosysmokes and featuring music by Andrew Philpott will appear as part of RTÉ Celebrates Culture Night, RTÉ One, Friday September 20th - catch up afterwards via RTÉ Player.
