Showtime for the Hooligans
PETER CANT, Artistic Director of Hooligan Art Community, reflects on a performance project involving eight young adults
In March 2024 we embarked on an exciting partnership with The Ladder as part of their theatre festival planned for that September. We were one of a number of international companies invited to collaborate with Cornish communities to create new work for the festival.
We were invited to a residency at The Pearl Exchange in Bude, a charity that supports the well-being of 18-35 year olds in Cornwall and Devon. Over four days we ran a series of workshops using singing, movement and devising techniques with a group of eight young adults. We had three main aims: to share skills for creating performance, to foster a feeling of creative community, and to create original material as a basis for a new show.
After some fun ice-breakers, our Ukrainian actor Simeon Kyslyi shared his experiences of being a teenage football hooligan. The participants asked Simeon questions and reflected on their own experiences of fear and belonging growing up. We were interested in how the hooliganism theme would complement The Pearl Exchange’s efforts to counteract feelings of alienation and isolation common to young adults in the region. Why are some young men drawn to violent subcultures for self-expression? What other ways exist to bring people together as individuals within a group?
From these starting points we moved from discussion into dance, song and improvisation, creating material which we later performed together in an emotive and heartwarming public sharing that included an ‘open mic’ part in which the group got to share their talents with each other in music, spoken word and drag. It was wonderful to witness the confidence of the group grow during four days together and a strong creative bond form. The participants said they felt free to be vulnerable in front of each other, leading to a sense of collective trust. From this auspicious start we had the feeling that we had found our ‘hooligan’ group.
Six months later we returned to Bude to create the production. The group had continued to meet up in our absence and had created musical and visual material sent to us in video clips. More participants joined as we started rehearsals in The Pearl Exchange’s new premises. Our filmmaker Liubov Sliusareva joined us to document the process. Composer and vocal leader Jessie Maryon Davies developed choral arrangements of both new and familiar songs, accompanied by percussionist Riccardo Castellani, while choreographer Mathis Kleinschnittger developed a movement language with the participants.
As director I was very interested in the spontaneous dialogue between the Cornish locals and Simeon Kyslyi onstage. The different backgrounds and experiences of the individuals in the company provided a rich array of expression. Common themes appeared and questions would arise which re-emerged in the creative work, in musical arrangements of hits by the Talking Heads, in a slow-motion choreography across the room, in comic improvisations, or in the customization of each person’s costume and mask.
The Bude community turned out en-masse to watch the preview of our show on 18th September, buoying the company for the journey onwards to Redruth where the show would premiere that weekend. True to Hooligan Art Community’s roots, that premiere took place in a site-specific ‘found’ space, the upstairs former archive room at the Ladder, stripped back due to renovations, and with a recently installed wooden floor.
We performed The Hooligan Project three times on 21st and 22nd September. The show represented the emergence of a new creative community among our Cornish participants, framed in parallel to Simeon’s experiences of belonging, alienation and displacement.
We are immensely grateful to our wonderful company of fantastic performers, to the whole creative team behind the show, to the Pearl Exchange for their extraordinary work and to The Ladder and Harbour Festival for their venturesome programming and bold production of what was a rare and precious project for all involved.
