Ahead of reviewing Gandini Juggling’s newest show, ‘Heka’ Sarah sat down with Sean Gandini to find out more.
Sarah
I saw from the information about you, that you were brought up in Cuba. Can you tell me about it?
Sean
That's right in Havana, I did all my kind of formative years from, when I was four years old to twelve. And ironically, I started doing magic in Cuba, and I then left magic for decade and then with this new piece, we've come back to magic. So, it's been an interesting, weird journey.
Sarah
What was it like growing up in Cuba?
Sean
It was extraordinary. I think I got the bright side of it. My parents were socialists who were kind of disillusioned with Europe and we were living in Canada, and they decided they needed to do something radical. And so, they moved to Cuba. We went on a merchant ship to Cuba. And I, I mean, I had a kind of tropical communism growing up. My house was full of big discussions about politics, Maoism versus Trotskyism; there was an there was an idealism in in all of that.
But it was very vibrant, very alive. There was a lot of music, a lot of just playing outdoors all day, swimming in the sea.
And then through watching Russian circus, because the Moscow circus used to come to Havana and I got this spark of that world, and that was always at the back of my mind. And I remember when I was six years old, at school they asked the students to write an essay entitled ‘What do you want to be when you grow up? ‘ And I think what was expected as kind of little Communist pioneer kids was, “I want to help the revolution by being a da, da da” and I wrote, “I want to be a clown” and I remember the headmistress reading it as an example of something that you shouldn't do.
It's an extraordinary place, and I mean, they're going through really hard times and it has been on and off hard times. And I guess Cuba's this strange political experiment. It's been interesting talking to my parents who are in their 80s now. I feel like there's a disillusionment with that dream that they had. And I see a lot of the energy within some of the young ecological activists or climate activists now. Similar to what my parents were at a time and in a way, it's kind of naïve, but also, you've got to do what you believe in.
Sarah
So that that was your ambition, right from six years old, you wanted to be a clown. So now how did you get there?
Sean
I think I always knew that I wanted to perform or be in the arts and that was for me always combined with a with an interest in mathematics and science. So, kind of science and performing were always there in one form or another. And I shifted from magic too. I painted for a long time, and then I discovered juggling.
And then when I met my wife, with whom I run the company, she had just retired from rhythmic gymnastics and we got interested in dance. And then that was a huge shift for us that this idea of going to see some dance performances and thinking, this aesthetic doesn't exist in circus. This would have been early 90s and thinking how can we apply this as aesthetic to circus and what would circus be if it was coming from that place? And I think for about 10-15 years that was our modus operandi. We've worked with opera, worked with ballet, worked with all kinds of things and then finally we returned to magic, which is really nice actually.
Sarah
That sounds fabulous. Amrat from our team came to I think your last show ‘Smashed’. And he really enjoyed it.
Sarah
So, this this show you've got on now it's it's two women performers?
Sean
More actually, it's called 'Heka'. We are seven and four of the performers are women, and in magic, that's quite rare. Magic is kind of a boy’s club. So, it's been very nice having and a more kind of dancey energy within it. And this, this whole 'Heka' came a little bit from the idea of what would happen if you watched 6 magicians at the same time. Could you follow because we've been quite modernist in our approach?
I'm actually reviving a very old piece at the moment here in France and it's very disjointed. There's often people doing different parts of different phrases at the same time, and my idea is, could you do that with magic and actually the real answer is no, you can't, because if you see just the end of a magic trick, if I go “look, it's gone”. I'm just opening an empty hand. You have to see the thing going in for the vanish to happen, so we had to rethink, and I'm super happy but it was a learning journey.
Sarah It sounds it sounds an incredible mixture of things; juggling and illusion and dance together.
Sean
But it's great and they go very together and the illusion thing has been really interesting in that. We don't normally consciously fool people and the premise of juggling is the lie. It is basically you're going out there and you're lying to people for an hour, which is kind of interesting. So, in the show we play a little bit with when we're lying when we're not lying. And how do you know when we're lying?
Sarah
OK, that sounds great. So, you're doing quite a big tour with this?
Sean
Yes.
Sarah
Is there anywhere on the tour you're particularly looking forward to visiting?
Sean
Lots of places. I'm looking forward to touring the UK, partly because of the arts economy in the UK. We rarely tour with the UK, just the finances just don't work, so we tend to work mostly outside of the UK, so it'll be nice to do an English tour even though our technical department says it's going to be quite hard.
We're doing a Swedish tour, which we haven't done before. Then this morning we were talking about a Catalonian, a tour of Spanish cities, so it's all very exciting.
Sarah
So, what what's the link to mime? I know this is part of the MIME festival.
Sean
So the mine festival officially no longer exists, but they do a mini festival every year as sort of shadow of what it used to be, and they just choose companies that they support or feel fit their visual aesthetic.
Sean
I think mime does them a disservice, and they're very aware of this and would like to rebrand as visual theatre.
Sean
We don't fit into any real category because we're not quite circus and we're not quite dance. So, we're not quite theatre so, so the mime festival really encapsulates all of us hybrid companies.
If this has whetted your appetite - this is where and when you can catch the unique mix of Gandini Juggling's latest production 'Heka'
Listings information
Thursday 30 January to Saturday 1 February - UK premiere part of Mime London The Place, LONDON 17 Duke's Rd, London WC1H 9PY Box office: 020 7121 1100 / https://theplace.org.uk/events/spring-25-gandini-juggling-heka / https://mimelondon.com/gandini-juggling-heka/
Thursday 6 February CAMBRIDGE Junction Clifton Way, Cambridge CB1 7GX Box office: 01223 511511 / https://www.junction.co.uk/
Sunday 9 February FARNHAM Maltings Bridge Square, Farnham GU9 7QR Box office: 01252 745444 / https://farnhammaltings.com/
Wednesday 12 February LANCASTER Arts Lancaster University, N Spine, Bailrigg, Lancaster LA1 4YW Box office: 01524 594151 / https://www.lancasterarts.org/
Friday 14 & Saturday 15 February BRIGHTON Dome
Church St, Brighton BN1 1UE Tickets: 01273 709709 / https://brightondome.org/
Tuesday 18 February Lighthouse POOLE 21 Kingland Rd, Poole BH15 1UG Box office: 01202 280000 / https://www.lighthousepoole.co.uk/
Thursday 20 February GLOUCESTER Guildhall 23 Eastgate St, Gloucester GL1 1NS Box office: 01452 503050 / https://www.gloucesterguildhall.co.uk/
Tuesday 25 February Corn Exchange NEWBURY Market Place, Newbury RG14 5BD Box office: 01635 522733 / https://cornexchangenew.com/
Saturday 10 May OXFORD Playhouse 11-12 Beaumont St, Oxford OX1 2LW Box office: 01865 305305 / https://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/
Sunday 11 May The Lowry, SALFORD Pier 8, The Quays, Salford M50 3AZ Box office: 0343 208 6000 / https://thelowry.com/
Tuesday 13 & Wednesday 14 May NORWICH Playhouse, part of Norfolk & Norwich Festival 42-58 St Georges St, Norwich NR3 1AB Box office: 01603 598598 /
Wednesday 3 June Lakeside Arts, NOTTINGHAM University Park, Lakeside Arts, Nottingham NG7 2RD Box office: 0115 846 7777 / https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/externalrelations/lakeside-arts.aspx
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