The Spotlight Circus team, photo courtesy of Athlone Foróige

by Saoirse Anton

If all the world is, as Shakespeare put it, a stage, then looking at the news these past few weeks, I have to question the choice of play and players. Watching news of riots in the UK, with people’s homes and places of worship attacked, and public spaces like libraries burned, news of protests outside accommodation for refugees and asylum seekers here in Ireland, news of people harassing athletes at the Olympics, news of climate-change related natural disasters, and news of the atrocities being inflicted on the people of Palestine, it’s easy to feel despair.

But if we make space for it, we can find joy too.

Spotlight Circus

I recently spent an afternoon in Athlone watching a performance by “Spotlight Circus,” a group of young refugees and asylum seekers who had spent the previous week learning circus and performance skills supported by New Horizons and Galway Community Circus. It was an afternoon of true communal joy as the participants got the chance to teach friends and family some of the skills they had learned, and display their skills in a showcase in the town park.

Seeing dozens upon dozens of people gathered to learn, play and perform together with their community set me thinking about so many other beautiful examples of people finding beauty in hard times through theatre and other arts.

From Gaza to Good Chance

The Gaza Free Circus brings relief into the lives of people living in the Gaza Strip, performing clowning shows in displacement camps, performing circus skills among the rubble of buildings bombed by the Israeli Defence Forces, and spreading the stories of the people they support.

Going back in time a little, we can remember the artists who worked to both bring some light into the Calais Jungle, and shine a light on the conditions there. Banksy created the mural Son of a Migrant from Syria in Calais, and the Good Chance built its first Dome “The Theatre of Hope” in the Calais Jungle in 2015. And stretching further back, we hear the familiar voices of singers like Vera Lynn trying to raise morale among soldiers sent into horrific scenes in World War Two.

Two clowns from the FreeGaza Circus performing, image from @free.gaza.circus

A performer from Spotlight Circus demonstrates their balance, image courtesy of Athlone Foróige

Singing about the Dark Times

Throughout our history we see the power of theatre and the arts as agents for change and sparks of hope. Augusto Boal developed Theatre of the Oppressed as a means of giving voice to people who lived under difficult or oppressive conditions, and empowering the audience as “spect-actors,” companies like Cardboard Citizens (who are a theatre company that works with and for homeless people) platform voices and stories that are normally ignored, and companies like The Freedom Theatre in Palestine mix theatre and activism to improve the lives of people living under Israeli occupation. And closer to home, when we all found ourselves in lockdown in 2020 during the Covid pandemic, it was the arts that helped bring us through and link us up with each other - whether it was watching along with Alison Spittle’s #covideoparty, or tuning in to Songs from an Empty Room, the fundraising concert broadcast from the Olympia theatre in support of the Association of Irish Stage Technicians’ Hardship Fund and Minding Creative Mings, or just binge-watching our favourite sitcoms. In every moment of difficulty and hardship, art shines through as a beacon of hope and community. As Bertolt Brecht wrote in his 1938 Svendborg Poems, “In the dark times\Will there also be singing?\ Yes, there will also be singing.\ About the dark times.”

Make Time

We all need community, it is part of the essence of life, of humanity, and gathering together to make, share and enjoy art is a surefire way to begin finding and building community. Whether you are participating in circus workshops, dancing your socks off at a gig, or sitting in the dark with an auditorium full of people enjoying a play, make time for art, make time for joy, make time for connection.