Inspired by the great Lismore-born tight-wire acrobat Con Colleano, a local circus arts practitioner is planning an event during which Indigenous kids and their professional mentors will attempt a high-wire walk 85 metres across the Wilsons River.Simone O'Brien, who is the co-founder of community arts organisation SeedArts, hopes the daring stunt can be expanded upon and become an annual event for Lismore.“We want to make it an annual destination event, celebrating Con Colleano and mental health and wellbeing,” Simone told the Lismore App.“It’s going to cost about $100,000 just to do the pilot project and then we would increase the riverbank activity as it gets more and more successful and that would be driven by local Bundjalung artists.”Since 2015, Simone - who was previously the creative director of the Mullumbimby Spaghetti Circus - has been working on a “social circus” project with Coraki Public School, where about half the students are Indigenous kids, and two years ago held the “Cirque de Coraki” there.“We were looking for Indigenous circus heroes for the kids to identify with and then I remembered that Con Colleano, the world's greatest tight-wire walker ever, was born in Lismore,” she said.Colleano - who was born Cornelius Sullivan in Lismore in 1899 - was the first person to successfully complete a forward somersault on a tightrope and became one of the most celebrated and highly paid circus performers of his time.He was known as "The Wizard of the Wire" or "The Toreador of the Wire" and was inducted into the International Circus Hall of Fame in 1966. He died in Miami, Florida, in 1973.Footage of Con Colleano in the US in 1939. VIDEO: Supplied.“For the Cirque de Coraki we imagined ourselves as the kind of circus that would have Con come and do his famous front somersault on the wire,” Simone said.“So we reenacted that with one of the students dressed as Con in a toreador's outfit and had him do a forward roll on a skipping rope on the ground. It was pretty cute.”Simone was inspired by a tight-wire project in Galway, Ireland. PHOTO: Supplied.Simone came up with the idea of a tight-wire across the Wilson’s River after learning of a similar project underway in Galway, Ireland.“That was a mental health and wellbeing project called Wires Crossed that’s teaching people how to walk the tight wire in preparation for walking on a wire over a river in Galway that is a suicide spot,” she said.“They want to rewrite the narrative of the spot through funambulism [tightrope walking].“I thought: ‘That is a great idea. Why don't we put a wire over the river in Lismore to not only celebrate Con Colleano but as a mental health and wellbeing and suicide prevention project?’“Because as we know, suicide is a major health concern and a problem of national significance for young people generally, let alone Indigenous young people who are five times more likely to commit suicide than their non-Indigenous counterparts.“So let's look at positive risk-taking rather than negative and antisocial risk, educate people about Con and give them the opportunity to succeed and work from a strengths-based approach, focusing on resilience and positive mental health.”SeedArts has already begun tightwire workshops with local Indigenous kids. PHOTO: Supplied.Simone said SeedArts had partnered with Beyond Empathy and Ghurrumbil Dreaming for the project and was in the process of consulting local Elders to pay respects and ensure that it proceeded in accordance with cultural protocols.“We’ve already started running free tight-wire skills at the Goonellabah skatepark every fortnight as part of the Ghurrumbil Dreaming community barbecues,” she said.“In September we're going to do a three-week tight-wire playground artists residency in the Quad where we will put up a whole bunch of different funambulist activities - like balancing equipment - and create a tightware playground for younger people.“And then on Saturday, September 21st, there will be at a high-wire performance from a shipping container in the Quad as part of the Lismore Playground Festival.”A schematic outlining plans for a tight-wire event over the Wilson's River. PHOTO: Supplied.Simone envisions the big tightwire event taking place next year across the Wilson’s River below the Elliot St Bridge, near Heritage Park.“We want to have professional wire walkers - two men, two women - and then each one of those will mentor a young person to attempt to cross,” she said. “And that'll be the last weekend in August, 2020, if all goes right. But we need to get the money first.“Lismore City Council is on board and we’re getting great support from Beyond Empathy and Ghurrumbil Dreaming and we're developing a prospectus to get interest and sponsorship from local businesses and organizations who want to see it happen.”For more information or to support the Wilson’s River high-wire event head to the SeedArts Australia website or Facebook page or send Simone an email at seedartsaustralia@gmail.com.
