[artist/producer]
F U T U R E R I T U A L is a performance platform for radical queer artists + audiences interested in ritual, myth, magick + mysticism to come together, to resist marginalisation, to challenge decency, to protest, to process, to dream us forward.
FRIDAY 5 OCTOBER || HACKNEY SHOWROOM || 7pm || Tickets: £8: Book now
I really rarely get to perform in London and now I’m performing in London (revisiting Fragment) so COME.
Union with Philip Bedwell
Ghosts, Submerge Festival, Bristol
3pm – 6pm
Tickets and further info
Performing alongside Rrose and Olivier de Sagazan, this is going to be special. Really honoured to be performing Union again in Bristol too.
Fragment (New work)
UNFIX Festival, CCA, Glasgow
12noon
Tickets and further info
Debut of a new piece – Fragment.
A room filled with shards of broken glass – clear, sharp, crystalline.
A body shedding something/seeking something – endurance, risk, control. No fairy tale, no crystal coffin.
Personal apocalypse. Potential rebirth.
I will be performing this new durational work at Buzzcut 2016 in Glasgow. The festival runs from 6-10 April and takes place at the Pearce Institute, Govan.
“Kintsukuroi (Japanese: golden repair) is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. […] As a philosophy it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.â€
Working with gold leaf and exploring the story of scars marking my body. Honouring and armouring these healed wounds.
THUR 7 APRIL, 7pm – 10pm
Union –  with Philip Bedwell.
FRI 20 MARCH – 3.45pm
The Mary Barbour, Pearce Institute. //BUZZCUT// festival
We cease to be connected physically but now joined through the shared ritual and our mirror image bleeding bodies. We both carry our lives marked in and on our bodies. Scars, tattoos, injuries have inscribed us with our stories and our passions. It’s natural for us to mark our marriage in a similarly physical way, and although we are joined, legally and romantically, we continue to be separate, individual and independent.
Work
+ Images from my piece ‘She was the Universe’ performed at SPILL Festival of Performance 2014Â are now online!
+Â I’ll be at //BUZZCUT// 2015 in Glasgow from 18 – 22 March, performing Union alongside Philip Bedwell. It’s my first time at //BUZZCUT// and I’m looking forward to it.
Watch
+ Marco Brambilla, Sync. I watched part of this in the Destricted collection of explicit art films. Montages of found footage – Sex, violence and voyeurism.
Reading
Various longreads I’ve loved this month
+ Alexander McQueen: Into the light, a beautiful look at the designer and his work.
+ I don’t care much for Taylor Swift but this piece on her belly button (of all things) talks about an interesting  ‘female navel taboo’ which I was not previously aware of.
+ Tanning, Training and Branding with the Bikini Bodybuilding Stars of Instagram
+ The Invisible Woman: A conversation with Bjork covers sexism, creativity, her new album.
Union – in collaboration with Philip Bedwell.
We cease to be connected physically but now joined through the shared ritual and our mirror image bleeding bodies. We both carry our lives marked in and on our bodies. Scars, tattoos, injuries have inscribed us with our stories and our passions. It’s natural for us to mark our marriage in a similarly physical way, and although we are joined, legally and romantically, we continue to be separate, individual and independent.
Philip and I are returning to Tempting Failure this year, this time working together. Once again the line up is fantastic and the venue is an amazing, unique space.
For 2014 Tempting Failure are running a week of free events and workshops ahead of the nights of performance on the 7th-8th November. Well worth checking out the full programme.
FRI 7 NOV – 6.30pm
The Island, Bristol. Buy your tickets here.
“The winds were wither’d in the stagnant air, And the clouds perish’d; Darkness had no need of aid from them — She was the Universe.”
She was the universe – A new piece inspired by darkness, apocalypse and the connection between the artist and the audience is part of the National Platform at this year’s SPILL Festival.
THU 30 OCT 2014 – 3pm
FRI 31 OCT 2014 – 12pm
Police Station, Ipswich, IP1 2AW
Part of All-Seeing and Thursday & Friday Daytime Passes – Buy your pass here.
[img: Sam Gregory]
[Suspension performance at The Double R Club, photo by Sebastien Gracco de Lay]
Work
Lots to announce this month –
+ She was the universe at Spill Festival, 30th and 31st October. – Absolutely thrilled to be showing this new work in the Spill Festival National Platform.
+ Also at Spill, I’ll also be performing in The Queen’s Boudoir by Lauren Jane Williams on 1st November.
+ Union at Tempting Failure, 7 November – I’m very happy to be returning to Tempting Failure for the third year running to present a piece devised and performed with my husband, Philip Bedwell.
Reading
+Â This is what it’s like to be at war with your body – Fascinating article on Apotemnophilia, Body integrity identity disorder (BIID) and those who voluntarily amputate their limbs.
+ An open letter to everyone who has told women don’t get too muscular – I’m really interested in the messages women are given about their bodies and their behavior, especially when it comes to sport, strength and fitness. This is just a great article on how these messages reflect gender roles and expectations.
+ Instruments for operating on mutant women gallery – Dead Ringers is one of my favorite films, this gallery contains some close up shots of the beautiful bizarre surgical instruments created for the film.
Watching
+Â Ghost in the machine (Blood robot selfie) by Ted Lawson. ‘Artist, Ted Lawson, creates a life-sized self-portrait drawing, in his own blood, using a robot.’
Work
+ Really thrilled to be showing a new piece involving suspension at The Double R Club this summer. It’s always interesting and risky creating work to show in a cabaret setting (admittedly Double R is a very strange kind of cabaret) and I’m enjoying how it takes me out of my comfort zone and of course, I’m enjoying performing in the gorgeous Spegeltent.
The show returns to London Wonderground on the 23rd August. You can get tickets here.
Reading
+ Is the woman who can’t cry stronger for it? In Aeon Magazine. Femininity, society and tears.
+ Without you I’m nothing – “The rock stars lover is public but powerless” I’m fascinated by the role of muse and it always feels like a very sexist set up to me (woman inspires, man creates) This article in The Believer looks specifically at the wives & girlfriends of famous male rock stars and their struggle to “stay whole in the great vortex of her lovers stardom”
Etc.
+ Inside Flesh tumblr (NSFW) + Sideshow, freakshow and the carnivalesque + BME nostalgia & subdermal implants + drag +
In October and November I’ll be performing a new piece, as yet untitled, in collaboration with my real-life partner Phil Bedwell.