Farm Yard Circus began creating work together in March 2019. The company of nine circus performers and musicians hail from southwest England and focus on creating outdoor circus theatre performances set and based around life on a farm.
This year they bring their farmyard antics to Worthy Farm – otherwise known as the location of Glastonbury Festival.
Ahead of their shows in the Theatre & Circus fields, we caught up with company member Jackie Clementines to find out more about what it’s like to be performing at the festival.
Q&A with Jackie Clementines from Farm Yard Circus
Can you tell us a little about Farm Yard Circus?
FYC is a circus theatre cooperative. We are a collective of 9 performers and co-directors who create narrative-led circus theatre productions for outdoor events. We aspire to create performances which are equally enjoyable for 3 year olds, 100 year olds and everyone in between!
How did you get into live performance?
I can’t speak for all 9 of us but for me personally performing is my job, my hobby and my therapy! I am basically that kid who never grew out of saying “Mum look what I can do!” Now mum tours the country with us looking after her 4 grandchildren whilst their parents do very silly things on stage…
I always dreamed of being a rapper (which I still do for fun) but had to settle for being a clown… I performed for fun for as long as I can remember, started getting paid a bit but still had a day job as a youth worker until I was 24(ish) when I managed to go full time.
All of our crew had slightly different routes in – some treading the more traditional path of studying at Circomedia and becoming much better acrobats than I will ever be!
What’s it like to be performing at this year’s Glastonbury Festival?
The whole crew is absolutely buzzing. We made this show 5 years ago and to be part of the Glasto Theatre and Circus lineup alongside so many of the world’s best feels like a massive landmark for us.
Almost all of the crew have performed at Glasto before with other companies but for me personally it will be my first time on site which is absolutely wild given that I have been attending 20+ festivals per year for the last 15 years!
What can you tell us about your plans for the show/s?
I would love to say we will do something unique and special just for Glasto and I’m not entirely ruling that out! However, realistically the show has to be carefully choreographed so we basically have to do the same thing wherever we are!
It feels weird blowing our own trumpet and telling everyone how good it is going to be so I am going to lean on our official show copy to paint a picture –
“Expect a daring riot of astonishing acrobatics and juggling using hay bales, wheelbarrows and even an old tractor tyre! Thoughtfully woven together using physical theatre, folk dance and a boot-slappin’ live score this production tells an uplifting tale of overcoming our differences.”
How do you approach performing at a festival like this?
Try really hard to treat every audience exactly the same whether it is big, small, prestigious names or just my mates in a pub! I do everything I can to give every gig 100% and treat it like it’s our first and our last.
In reality though, I am going to be much more excited and nervous before these shows than most!
Will you be checking out any other acts across the weekend?
Again I’m speaking for me not FYC…
Ezra Collective, Bob Vylan and Kae Tempest stand out pretty hard right now but there are just way too many brilliant acts to see even a quarter of them.
