Wires Crossed: The Journey and Beyond
Wires Crossed is a project spanning five years, 13 countries and thousands of participants, instructors, artists and performers. It is a European-wide community project based around funambulism, the art of walking across a wire using a balancing pole.
Much like the act of walking a highwire, it takes focus and dedication to plan events during a global pandemic, but we’re delighted to say Wires Crossed is still on track!
About Wires Crossed
The first seeds of what would become Wires Crossed took hold at a lunch break during a seminar at the École de Cirque de Bruxelles (Circus School of Brussels). Galway Community Circus Executive Creative Director Ulla Hokkanen had the opportunity to try out funambulism during a short workshop and was immediately hooked. “I still remember this really emotional moment and the sensation of ‘wow I can do this, I’m good at this, I love this!’” said Ulla, remembering walking the wire for the first time. She credits École de Cirque de Bruxelles director Vincent Wauters with being a key inspiration behind Wires Crossed. She describes funambulism as something that scares you at first but can build your confidence through practice.
“We started talking about how to do a European funambulism project, but really it was Vincent’s passion that helped inspire [Wires Crossed],” she said. Ulla and Vincent envisaged a cross-cultural funambulism project that would be accessible to ordinary people and communities, not just trained circus artists. To date, Wires Crossed participants range in age from 6 to 74.
The project was further developed during the Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture bidding process. At that time in Galway, Ulla explained, the city was grappling with tragedy as a number of young people took their own lives drowning in the River Corrib. Wires Crossed envisioned a community effort that would bring people from all around Europe together to take part in a crossing of the River Corrib and Claddagh Basin to highlight the importance of positive mental health within our communities with a public display of hope, solidarity, and strength.
“Galway Community Circus is very much about promoting positive wellbeing and health and that time really drew attention to the huge issues around youth mental health,” Ulla said. “We really wanted to do a project that would address the importance of mental health in a positive, hopeful way that would bring people together and celebrate their ability to overcome obstacles, and to do things they think they wouldn’t be able to do.”
Working with Galway 2020 was a platform for Wires Crossed to strengthen European partnerships through Erasmus+ and Creative Europe. Beginning in 2017, the project partners created methodology for training circus teachers who could then go out and teach others the art of funambulism.
Naturally, the COVID-19 pandemic pressed pause on live in-person programme elements in 2020, but Wires Crossed was never meant to be a once-off event. “We always wanted to create something that would have a future. It was about bringing this skill to Galway and getting people to fall in love with it,” Ulla said. Galway Community Circus was the first Irish organisation with a dedicated funambulism programme, and already the art form has started to take hold elsewhere in the country.
Upcoming Events
Earlier this year, Galway Community Circus put out an open call for artists to submit designs that would be painted on the concrete blocks used to secure the funambulism walking lines.
The blocks will be painted this weekend ahead of the official opening of the Irish Centre of Funambulism, Ireland’s first and only training and participation centre for funambulism. The 2021 Wires Crossed outdoor workshop season opens April 26 with a series of free workshops for 10-17-year olds funded by Galway 2020. Starting on slacklines 30cm off the ground, participants learn to use the balancing pole and build toward higher wires, with the emphasis on building technique and practising focus. All COVID-19/public health guidelines will be followed. Each participant will have their own wire to walk and Ulla added that the funambulism poles make funambulism the perfect social distancing activity.
In July 2021, ‘Step Off’, a short film produced by Galway Community Circus with Morgan Creative, will premiere online as part of a two-day digital conference about funambulism and the Wires Crossed project. Supported by Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture, it focuses on the experience of an ordinary person achieving an extraordinary feat while finding confidence, hope and joy on a tightwire. The film was created with and performed by young Galway Community Circus artists.
Looking to the Future
The Wires Crossed project’s European partnerships are still going strong. Galway Community Circus plans to adapt a version of the original river crossing during the summer of 2022. In the future, Galway Community Circus envisages an outdoor programme that will run every year from May to September, with an annual crossing of the River Corrib to serve as a goal to work towards.
“What we all need after the lockdowns is to come together outdoors and do something exciting. The workshops are brilliant because even if we can’t travel this summer, we can experience something new,” Ulla said. “This project has always been about hope and celebrating inner strength, and that’s a message needed now more than ever.”
Check out our Wires Crossed impact report here.