Maeve Davey currently works for The Beat Initiative, co-ordinating community and carnival arts production in Belfast. While their biggest event is the annual Belfast Carnival, they employ actors, musicians, dancers and artists for various workshops and carnivals throughout the year. Maeve has had an eclectic career so far, working as an English tutor, freelance journalist, club-night organiser, doing PR for Belfast tourist board and some continued academic study.
So Maeve, what’s a typical day for you at the Beat Initiative?
On paper, I work a nice, 20 hour week but, in reality, if it’s coming up to an event and there’s a lot of workshops on I can end up working a lot of extra hours. In an ideal scenario, I can start work mid-morning, take a long lunch break sitting outside the carnival warehouse in the sun with the rest of The Beat team and still be home in time for Neighbours. However, working in something as varied as carnival arts means having to be prepared to travel all over Belfast – visiting workshops, meeting people, taking photos, supervising children, playing drums and even dressing up as a love nymph for photo shoots on occasion!
What were you up to today then?
We’ve just finished our Beatfest programme which has been running the whole way through June, bringing carnival arts all across the city through parties in the park, under 18’s nightclub nights, drumming workshops and samba dancing. The finale party happened a few weeks ago, so we’re still recovering from all the fun and from saying goodbye to Moleque de Rua, a Brazilian band who returned to Belfast for a second year for a two week residency. We also had a few technical difficulties post-carnival in the office when one of the floats ended up knocking out wires which meant we had no internet, email or phonelines working yesterday, so today we’re trying to catch up on everything we would have liked to have done yesterday!
You have been professionally involved in a lot of different areas, but what do you especially like about your job at the moment?
It’s really varied so it’s hard to get bored and a lot of the time it can genuinely be fun to go to work. I like organising activities for children and young people of all ages that makes the most of their potential and can be a great opportunity to get different communities from different parts of the city together. It’s also hard not to enjoy working right beside a warehouse which is an Aladdin’s cave of carnival floats, colourful costumes, art materials and drums!
On the other hand, what do you dislike the most?
Unfortunately the arts tend to be drastically under-funded, which can make things difficult for everyone involved. There are a lot of community groups, bands and performers we would like to work with but if their grants fall through or they have staffing problems then that can make things problematic. In terms of The Beat, I haven’t really found a ‘worst thing’, although when you’re working with large numbers of people all across Belfast, bands from Brazil, Dublin, Glasgow and organisations all around Europe it’s inevitable that their will be some logistical problems and lines crossed from time to time, so events can end up being delayed or falling through. But it’s all part of the crazy spirit of carnival so it’s hard to stay annoyed for long!
How did you get into arts admin/communications?
A combination of an arts degree, experience of running my own gigs and clubnights as well as working with children, six months working in PR and experience of being in a school samba band all seemed to align with the fates and get me the job!
I know you’ve had a varied career so far, but who or what has been the biggest influence on you?
All the staff at The Beat and the freelance artists and performers we work with are very creative people with different experiences and different approaches to work, and in different ways they have all been influential. Having worked with so many international acts and organisations I definitely plan to travel more and whether in a paid or voluntary capacity, I hope to stay involved with community arts throughout my career.
What has been your biggest achievement so far?
Our most recent carnival was a big success and we got a lot of positive feedback which was great. Considering this was the second carnival in less than 2 months and we had a festival programme as well to get through, I was pretty pleased.
In your opinion what skills do you need to be good at your job?
It’s so important to be really organised in order to balance work and meet deadlines – I’m not naturally like that so it’s been a learning curve but I think I’ve learned to be pretty good at it. It’s also important to work hard but stay calm and remember that carnival is meant to be artistic, creative and fun so you should stay as positive and enthusiastic as possible.
If you could do a complete turnaround and have any job at all, what would it be?
I can see myself as an eccentric academic, swanning around Europe giving papers at conferences and publishing esoteric tomes!
Do you have any ideas about where you’ll be in 10 years time?
As long as I’m doing plenty of travelling that’s fine with me! I hope to continue learning as I go and being involved with the arts.
