Ian Mortimer - Founder and Director of the Longyard Sideshow Company

Graduate of the Victorian College of the Arts (1978 inaugural year), co-founder of the Flying Fruit Fly Circus. 33yrs. of Stage, screen, spectacle and public events.

Skills

PERFORMING ARTS Puppet design and building. Large scale and intimate display. Music composition and performance. Circus, sideshow and street culture (busking), illusion, children’s theatre. Film and TV acting. Drama and modern comedy. Classic stage theatre, Shakespeare and Comedia del’arte.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT and TEACHING Museum interactive exhibitions. Content driven edu-tainment. Festival constructs. Event design and management. Setting up regional and National Circus schools.

FESTIVAL AND PAGENT DESIGN Urban and community festival design and management. Theme image realisation. Australian content, multicultural and indigenous projects.

CULTURAL INITIATIVES Mythology, indigenous story telling and cosmology.

OUTSIDER ART using unique materials and placement. Lowbrow art items, paintings, graphic art, project driven art pieces.

KINETIC SCULPTURE Giant site specific items driven by natural elements, wind, water and light. Parks gardens and playgrounds. Imagineering, mythology and symbolism.

FILM, TV AND LITERATURE Feature film acting and script writing. Documentary and TV series.

TECHNICAL SKILLS: Magic, music, design, engineering, physics, puppetry, project management.
 

Ian Mortimer - The Biography

Artistic Director, festival designer, teacher, producer, musician, clown……

As co-founder and skills teacher for the Flying Fruit Fly Circus I have experience setting up regional programs and understand the myriad of tasks, responsibilities and imagineering involved. I believe I can usefully bring this and a range of other professional and personal experiences to any project.

I graduated from VCA’s School of Drama in 1978 (the inaugural Diploma year) and have worked consistently since then as a freelance artist in a variety of forms and roles including performer (clown, musician, actor, puppeteer and stuntman), designer, performance maker, teacher and more recently, director, and producer. I have 32 yrs of stage, screen, street, spectacle and public event experience (see CV for details).

Over the years I’ve delivered circus skills workshops, to performing Arts students at Macquarie, La Trobe, Melbourne, Bond and Sydney Universities. I worked as Art Director / consultant to Questacon (The National Science and Technology Centre Canberra,) on their design and development of exhibit presentation, human resource development and training of staff for public display and story telling.

I have delivered numerous workshops, programs and courses in circus/performance making in communities including working in the past 12 months in Indigenous communities in Charleville (QLD), Alice Springs and Uluru (NT). In 2001, I worked as a puppet maker and designer for the National Federation Yiperrenye Festival in Alice Springs - the largest gathering of indigenous tribal performing arts ever. I have always had a strong team with me headed by my mate Matt Woodrow, an extremely skilled and dedicated teacher and mech.

I have set up circus programs in Northern NSW (Palm Beach, Avalon), Alice Springs and Mututjullu (NT) and Charleville and in these situations, worked with young people, youth at risk, and Indigenous people. I have witnessed and appreciate the role Art and physical programs in particular can play in people’s lives. I am aware of and connected with related community, arts and business organizations including Circus Oz, Flying Fruit Flies, Regional Arts Victoria, Auspicious Arts, VCA, Youth Theatre Canberra, Federation Square and Young Performers Workshop (Sydney).

When working with Floriade, Darling Harbour, Questacon and Culture in the Mulga Charleville, I managed large budgets, wrote and acquitted successful funding submissions securing federal, state and corporate funds, and worked with marketing departments. I was responsible for employing and managing teams of artists.

I recently founded the Longyard Sideshow Co and produced the Great Big Storybook. I have created many work opportunities for Australian performing artists including establishing street performances at Darling Harbour and directing the first 3 months of mobile performance operations. I introduced street theatre and variety shows to Woodford Folk Festival along with Tony Kishawi and John Haag as THE SYDNEY PHIL & MONIQUE ORCHESTRA.

I am able to teach workshops in, or design and deliver programs in, theatre for physical performers including: ring craft, character development, movement (Laban), storytelling, clown, voice production, Comedia Del’Arte, maskwork, magic, music, staging, and project management. In the past I have also taught Acrobatics.

I am very aware of the health and safety requirements of skills delivery and circus performance in a variety of settings. I have been involved in the stunt industry and helped establish the Stunt Safety Code for the film and TV industry in Australia.

In the various roles, projects and situations identified already, I have needed to effectively communicate ideas, processes, operational information, and safety issues to individual program participants and students, community members and groups, organizations, corporate and government bodies, employers and employees. I have had to make written and spoken presentations on behalf of myself, and my projects. In the projects referenced above, I have worked as an independent (solo) artist and in teams, both as a manager and team member.

I was actively involved in the birth of community Circus in this country. When I started working the streets the only others out there were Hari Krishnas.

I have travelled the hard road and as a street performer I have often taken it to the edge with risky acts and environs but this is my art, my passion and my life’s work. In this way I have gathered a rich pallet of experience to draw on. I have always taught younger players as I go. This gives me immense satisfaction but I see it as my duty as well. I recognise the unstoppable urge in someone who has talent and whose soul is infected by the need to express their art. I have seen the wild ratbag become the dedicated and skilled practitioner.

But it is not just the aspiring professionals that ring my bell. One of my greatest life experiences was when I was teaching circus in the central desert I was told by a 16 year old aboriginal boy, one of Matty's star students, “I don’t drink no more and I don’t fight cos I got Circus now.“ I realised then that many of the kids we were working with would be sniffing petrol and doing jail if not for what we were teaching them.

One child I worked with in the very first Flying Fruit Fly Circus suffered eating disorders and communication problems through the death of her twin. The Circus almost literally saved her life and she now has a career spanning 25 years with Circus Oz.

My heart leaps when I see the transformational power of training in circus skills. I have watched school grades improve and bodies get fit and graceful.

I’ve sat in the moonlight with old timers like Micky and Dougy Ashton, Jimbo Robinson, Slim Dusty and laughed over old clown routines and anecdotes, talked with Tex Morton's mob about the old tent shows, discussed the craft with John Pinder and Gary MacDonald

I have a great deal to offer as a teacher, creator, strategist and mentor. I know this industry well and the people dedicated to it. I know how to inspire passion and confidence in young and older people and take them far beyond their expectations. I teach not just skills but ideals, enthusiasm and the power of dreams.
 

 Referees:
Cathy Winters 0418 450 520 Director of Floriade (past)
Clive Scollay 0418 697 409 exec producer Yeperenye Fest
Matt Hughes 0419 992 272 Circus Oz
Mark Shirrefs 0416 052 117 Co-founder Fruit Fly Circus

For Mort's work biography of the past 33 years working in the arts and circus industry in Australia, please click here