Current work
Last dance was Feral Theatre's new work for 2023 in partnership with the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale.
Last Dance is a semi-improvised performance centred around a suspended sculpture. The performers partner the sculpture in a strange dance as they navigate its changing form. Visually inspired by Louise Bourgeois’ suspended works, the piece is a study of loss, cycles and tipping points. How do we deal with irreversible change and the aftermath of loss? What happens when we face impossible choices?
We will be premiering Last Dance in Europe at the eCARTE conference in Belgium in September 2024.
Date Nature is part of a larger body of work I am planning, thinking through our relationship with nature in innovative, playful and thought-provoking ways. Various strands might include a live show, interactive and participatory elements including digital work, and this short film created for Span Arts Love Stories to Nature commission.
In the context of the environmental crisis we are facing, our relationship with the non-human or natural world feels like a crucial place to start unpicking how we have got to where we are, and how we might heal and change. I am drawn to the idea of earth as lover rather than earth as mother (with infinite resources to exploit), an idea from the eco-sexuality or sexecology movement - a radical form of environmental activism founded by Elizabeth Stephens and Annie Sprinkle. This movement is about a loving and sensual experience of nature, treating nature as we would a partner, with love, respect, trust, equality, tenderness and mutual support.
This iteration of the project is a short, experimental film, a mockumentary detailing three people’s experiences using a fictional dating app called Date Nature. The app pairs up lonely singles with trees, plants, roadside verges, ponds and anthills. During the film we see the participants meeting with their chosen piece of nature and going on a date, we have the all-important post-date interview, and of course we find out – will they see each other again?
Feral Theatre
I am co-director of Feral Theatre with Persephone Pearl and Rachel Porter. We have been making theatre, live art and films together since 2007. Most of our work has been site specific and one off with commissions from the Southbank Centre and the TippingPoint, and funding from ACE and LADA amongst others.
We work as an ensemble using film, verbatim text, shadows, puppetry, music, circus and physical theatre. Our work is rough and spontaneous often made in short intense bursts with long periods of research and conversation in between. We work separately as well as together.
Watch our film Alterlife here.
Remembrance Day for Lost Species
I am a founder member of Remembrance Day for Lost Species November 30th, a chance each year to explore the stories of extinct and critically endangered species, cultures, lifeways, and ecological communities.
Whilst emphasising that these losses are rooted in violent and discriminatory governing practices, the day provides an opportunity for participants to make or renew commitments to all who remain, and to develop creative and practical solutions.
Watch our 2020 opening event here.
