Carnesky's Tarot Drome

Carnesky's Tarot Drome

@ Old Vic Tunnels

During August and September of 2012 I went to London to join the cast of Carnesky's Tarot Drome

The Show was performed at London's avant garde performance venue the Old Vic Tunnels over a ten night consecutive run.

Carnesky's Tarot Drome was devised by 15 of London's hottest performers including hula hooping extraordinaire Chi Chi Revolver Performance artiste Rhyannon Styles Burlesque performer Vicky Butterfly and choreographer and live artist H Plewis to name only a few of the talented cast that made up the show.

Tarot Drome was directed by show-woman Marisa Carnesky, who has been making performance work for over twenty years. She is best known for Carnesky’s Ghost Train, a large scale arthouse theme park ride with live performers, now permanently sited in Blackpool. Her solo shows include Jewess Tattooess, and City of Women, and previous collaborations include the Olivier Award-winning C’est Duckie.

 "The tarot works. No-one really knows why. The cards you pick at random act as a reflection of your innermost hopes and fears, reveal old wounds and historical personalities, and speak of unknown futures."

What if you could meet the cards in the flesh? Would you dare peek behind the veil of the High Priestess? Frolic with the Fool or come toe-to-toe with the Devil? Have you ever wanted to dissolve the barrier between the conscious and the unconscious and see what lies on the other side?

The first part of the show saw the audience free to roam around the extraordinary tunnels underneath Waterloo station, which provided the setting for this unique piece of promenade theatre. As the audience moved around the space they met and interacted with several or the major arcana of the tarot personified through abstract performance art and ritual.

Personalised tarot card, created from my likeness.

I played the card of Temperance during the show using a meter squared human sized fish tank to create a durational piece of performance improvisation. I loved working with the tank and felt like it continuously offered me new ways of moving and interacting with it's cold and hard surfaces. Each night of the performance during my 40 min improvisation i would discover new things, It was lucky that i enjoyed working on it so much as it was very enduring for the body and I spent the best part of the run collecting bruises.

Here are some pictures from my work in the tank.

Images are by talented Sarah Ainslie, the fantastic Sin Bozkurt and the wonderful John Bland

The second part of the show took the form of a spectacular roller skating finale with a twist, choreographed by H Plewis to a bespoke live soundtrack from Rasp Thorne and the Briars The show was starlight express meets eyes wide shut, a mixture of entertaining skating routines, avant garde performance art, roller derby madness, and ritualistic story telling.

So, that's all on Tarot Drome, you can read about devising and rehearsals on my earlier blog post here

Thanks for reading x

Cirque Elemental - Incandescence

 Performing with Incandescence Circus Theatre in 'Cirque Elemental' - South Korea 2012

So many exciting things happened to me during the summer of 2012, but perhaps the most exciting was performing 'Cirque Elemental' with the international adventurers of the circus theatre community Incandescence Circus

Cirque Elemental was originally created several years ago and toured internationally, it was also presented for one of Incandescence's only 'home runs' In a circus Big Top by the sea in Cornwall.
 The 'Elemental' show was gloriously resurrected, with an all new cast and crew especially for the Gwanyang International Circus Festival of South Korea.

Alongside re-devising and recreating the show with Artistic Director Satya Lapham and Theatre Director Bex Appelby of Knee High Theatre earlier on in May (you can see snaps of rehearsals from my previous blog post here) The company also re-made most of the props and costumes needed for the show. With twenty performers each wearing an average of five different costumes this was by no means a small task!

The cast was made up of an extreemly diverse and talented bunch of performers with specialist skills in acrobalance, contemporary dance, ballet, pointe, fire juggling, stiltwalking, aerial hoop, cloudswing, aerial silks, and last but not least clowns! It was a pleasure working with everybody on the tour, and there was never a dull moment.

The show was a colurful plethora of spectaular skills, intimate moments, high octane circus, and beautiful dance, all dressed in the most glamourous costumes you have ever seen and sculpted with  lighting and special effects.

Throughout the show i played one of two toybox characters that came to life, assisting the journey of Mei Mei, played by the talented Charlie Buckley, as she explored the world of 'Elemental' In the story Mei Mei travels through the enchanting worlds of water, fire, air, and earth all the while being guided by her clown friends Ro Ro and Ru Ru and under the watchful eye of queen Fi Fi.

Photography by the talented Liam Norris

Mei Mei before her new friends magically come to life

The Flying Machine

3, 2, 1 LIFT OFF

Sailing Stormy Seas

My amazing arabesque on stilts!

Wonderful Water Scene