We sat down for an exclusive interview with Kaveh Rahnama who is not only a host but performing as part of The Flying Bazazi Brothers, at Jacksons Lane’s 50th birthday celebration on Saturday 28th June. Book now here.
What has been your approach to choreographing circus acts in and around such an iconic building, and how do you use its spaces to surprise audiences?
I’ve worked in the building for a long time, so I know the spaces quite well. I have access to the main foyer area, the theatre space, and then all the spaces outside the building. Circus has an element of risk and takes up quite a large amount of space, so it’s about how I position the performers in relation to the audience that keeps it interesting.
I am working with a number of different artists. We have a hula hooper, Maz, a juggler and a handstand artist as well as lots of other people. The main bit I’m using is just outside the theatre. There is a little ledge there which has the word ‘theatre’ written on it which is never really used for anything, so I’m putting our hand balancer Natalie on top of that. That’ll be a really lovely space for the audience which should make them look at the building in a slightly different way.
They’ve done a brilliant job on renovating the space, so I’m trying to highlight it. I’m collaborating with the participation team to try and bring some of the young people into some of the work, so there’s going to be a little stage just outside the theatre as well. I’ll then also use the front of the building. The foyer area by the cafe we’ll walk through as a parade. Then I’m going to use bits of space outside the front of the building. There’ll be little things happening throughout the day on the steps and just inside the foyer area when you first get in. We’ll be doing some set pieces which move down along the lovely front area where the old entrance used to be. Some practical considerations of where we can physically go without endangering anybody or be difficult for people to be able to see have meant that it’s been quite a challenge!
This event brings together performers across the circus arts, from stilt walking to harp playing clowns. How did you curate and collaborate with such a wide range of artists for this unique daytime celebration?
Whenever I’m putting together a show in a short space of time, I try to use some stuff that I know works that I’ve done before, whether that’s a performer or a creative component. But then I also get bored very quickly, so I don’t like too much repetition. I often mix things up by using a different person. I’ve peppered the day and evening mostly with performers who have had a physical engagement with Jackson’s Lane. The harp playing performer, Xenia was one of the leads in this year’s Christmas Comes To Moomin Valley. For the stilt walker, there’s a really iconic black and white picture on the wall as you go up where she is wearing a black and white striped stilt costume. We’re going to try and recreate that costume for Ella, who’s a performer. Ella was also in the film that we made during the renovations. Dani, who is one of the main people in the daytime parade, was in Billy Goats Gruff a couple of years ago; Ed, who’s one half of the Flying Bazazi Brothers, has collaborated with me endlessly at Jacksons Lane. It’s people that already have a relationship with the venue, but in different projects, all coming together. I’ve tried to provide variety, so a real mix of skills and disciplines.
Jackson’s Lane has a deep rooted history in community and activism. How do the performances you’re directing reflect or honour that legacy, especially in such a public interactive format?
I’m working with Holly Wallis and Marie Horner, who have been working on an oral history of the building, gathering these brilliant stories from over the years. Marie is doing a series of interviews, and Holly’s been doing more research into people that maybe have passed away or we can’t get hold of, and finding little stories. I think the information they’ve gathered will inform my performances.
What I love about Jackson’s Lane is that it sits in two halves. There’s the artistic programme which happens predominantly in the theatre, and there’s the participation programme, which happens both in the building but also around the borough. I’m trying to mesh those things together in this. I’ve got professional performers, but the work with Holly to include some of the young people in it is super important to me. I think the history of Jackson’s Lane is really rooted in community and activism. Linking these young people from the community together with the professional performers feels like a real meshing of generations. Xenia, the harp player, is going to be working with me and Holly to incorporate some of those stories into the songs she’s writing. I’m hosting the evening cabaret as well so I’ll be peppering it with those little stories throughout the night to really bring them to life for the audience.
We know the arts are struggling currently. I have my full-time job, which is working to get young adults into creative careers and doing training. There’s a real pressure on the creative industries and performing arts, but I do think we desperately need the arts and we need live entertainment. That feeling of being in a live space – you can’t really replace that. Especially in the modern world, which is more and more technology-based, we have fewer opportunities to have those public gatherings – I think theatres are important places to keep that alive. Circus in particular is a very anarchic art form – you often find people within it who maybe don’t fit into a traditional education system. The people I’ve met are very self-sufficient, independent thinkers. They are people that question things and are often activists, so for me, circus is almost activism, and an appropriate art form for Jacksons Lane.
You’re also performing as one half of the Flying Bazazi Brothers in the evening cabaret. How does your perspective shift between directing the daytime spectacle and stepping into the spotlight yourself later that evening?
Adrian basically asked me to do both! I thought, “those are two very different hats”, but I have brought on board an excellent stage manager – Rosh Conn. She’s absolutely brilliant. In terms of scheduling throughout the three days we’re rehearsing, she’ll be very much a part of that. Then as a director I try to use people that I feel confident will contribute – they bring themselves to the process. By Saturday, the piece will be made. I will obviously watch and give feedback after each little thing, but it’s kind of done – it’s a one-off, not touring or doing anything else. For me, actually, my job as a director is mostly done by the end of Friday. It’s the hardest bit of being a director – you kind of hand it over to the cast. Usually, for a show, you have tech, then dress and a week of previews. In that time, I’m writing, feeding back, tweaking, changing things, etc. This process isn’t like that. We just do not have the time – because it’s just one day, you kind of have to make it and then go, okay, here it is.
The Bazazi show we’ve done lots and lots of times. It’s not a new thing. I don’t think I’d be confident performing a new act, but because it’s something that’s very much in my body, it is an easy thing to switch into. I’m actually really excited about hosting it. I’m quite a relaxed host. I don’t dress up in a big costume or anything. I feel very much there as the facilitator of these amazing acts around me rather than trying to be all “aren’t I wonderful?”. It’s about easing the space between the acts.
With Jackson’s Lane celebrating both its past and future, including a focus on sustainability and access, how do you see your role as a director contributing to its evolving story, especially for new audiences encountering circus for the first time?
I think I’m quite uniquely placed within the building. I imagine that’s why Adrian asked me to direct it. I’ve been working at the building since 2008. My first show was called The Hot Dots back in 2008, which we then toured extensively around the UK. Jacksons Lane had us as associate artists. It was a double act – two of us doing acrobatics. From there I started a youth circus. We would go out and do local events like Fair in the Square, very much ambassadors for the venue.
I don’t know of many places where I’ve had that much presence. I’d like to think I brought a lot to the building, not just with my own projects but also with the other artists that I’ve brought in. Maz, who’s doing hula hooping, is a great example. She now does quite a lot of participation stuff for Jackson’s Lane. I met Adrian while the venue was still shut, and he invited me in for when it was just about to open to the public. He didn’t have a huge programme because he was kind of starting from scratch – it had been closed for a year. So, I met him at a really interesting point in its journey, and I feel like I’ve been there very consistently since then, and my role’s changed. I’ve gone from being more of a performer towards directing and producing. I feel like the way I’ve been involved in the building for the last 20 years really has contributed to its evolving story, and I imagine it will continue to. I love the space.
With regard to new audiences, I’ve always been a huge advocate for looking again at what we think about things. I think circus is such a wonderful art form. It gives you so much space to be yourself in it, but people love boxes – so even circus, which fights every box you could possibly have in terms of its anarchic nature – people think that it must involve a stripey big top. I still get asked if there are animals in circuses! I like talking to people, and I feel quite able to connect with a wide variety of people, so I think I’m well placed to be able to shift people’s perspectives about what circus is and what it can achieve. I’m very much interested in storytelling. That’s how I’ve always used circus, and yet most people would see it as just spectacle and just big tops and that kind of thing. I see myself as an advocate for, or an example of, how circus can be used in far broader and more interesting ways.
The education and the arts are getting less and less money. Kids are getting more and more funneled into narrower streams. I’ve got two kids in primary school at the moment, and creativity is always an add-on. We’re encouraged everywhere you turn to fit into a system that exists. I think that circus is a way of breaking that. There are no two same circus artists – you don’t learn to do something exactly the same way as someone else. Circus celebrates the individual in a way that lots of other areas of society don’t necessarily. I’d like new audiences, especially young people, to discover that.
There is something about circus – it’s got an element of risk to it and there’s something exciting about that. I feel very passionate about getting young people and audiences to see it and use it in a different way as a bit of an antidote to some of the other more sanitized and less risky things that go on in the world.