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

Carnesky's Tarot Drome

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I have just spent a week in London devising with the wonderful cast of Marisa Carnesky's new performance art project ‘Tarot Drome’.

 Marisa and her husband Rasp Thorne have been colleagues and friends of mine for several years now. We met whilst working together with the Insect Circus, a victorian-esque family show, which regularly brings the wonderful world of performing insects onto the stages of theatres around the country,  for more information on the fascinating world of The Insect Circus see HERE

Marisa, Rasp and I have since worked on together on several other projects, joining Marisa as part of the Carnesky Productions team of musicians, performers and technicians and touring throughout the UK and Europe with shows such as ‘Carnesky’s Ghost Train’ (a live performance art ghost train!) ‘Magic War’, a tale of Masonic rituals and occult secrets, and ‘Dystopian Wonders’ A show about a unusual exhibition, that unexpectedly comes to life as the audience are introduced to the exhibits on a guided tour.

Here are the Lovly Marisa and the wonderful Rasp,

Marisa is an olivier award winning renowned show-woman and magical performance artiste, she has been creating spectacular and kooky shows for over a decade, mixing illusions, theatre and burlesque with subjects both serious and bizarre.

To find out more about Carnesky Productions current and past projects please visit

www.carnesky.com

Together we have just embarked on the first week of devising for the new Tarot Drome project,

An immersive promenade theatre show that brings the mystical characters of Tarot cards to life.

  

Tarot Cards work. No one really knows why. The cards you pick seemingly at random act as a reflection of your innermost hopes and fears, reveal old wounds, historical personalities and speak of unknown futures.

 What if you could meet the archetypes of the cards in the flesh? What if you could immediately understand the symbolism they hold for you by meeting them face to face and taking part in performance rituals that lead you to extraordinary personal revelations?

 Would you dare to peek behind the dark 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 that separates the conscious and the unconscious so you can see what lies beneath?

The performance will be staged in promenade style, the audience will be free to roam ‘the street of cards’ and meet the characters of the deck to receive there personal reading.

Live Music and songs will be created and performed especially for the shows by Rasp Thorne and The Briars.

Rasp Thorne and the Briars

The cast is a collection of some of Londons finest cabaret and live performance artists, including Vicky Butterfly, Haitch Plewis, Ryan Styles, Nina Davis, Chi Chi, Phil and Helen, Heather and myself...the only Bristolian in the mix!

We spent our first week together studying the Major Arcarna, getting to know the cards and experimenting with tools to embody and physicalise the meanings of the card to create physcal performances in order to convey the messages hidden in the cards.

Each of us experimented and played with several cards until we each found one with which we truly connected or found a kinship with, Marisa guided us through this development period aided by a trunk of old junk from her attick, which we often used to describe things we imagined, for example and old broom handle became a sword or a pile of old hair a dog.

Here are some snapshots of our experiments

Marisa talks to us about the history of the Tarot

Studying the cards

Heather as 'The High Priestess'

Rasp as 'The Devil'

Haitch as 'The Moon'

The Lovly Haitch x

The spectacular Carnesky's Tarot Drome, is a show not to be missed, It will be performed during September at the London Old Vic tunnels as part of the London 2012 cultural olympiad festival, for more information on the show and how to book tickets see HERE

Next time we meet in June, we will be learning more about the Tarot deck from a Tarot expert, as well as trying out our skills on roller skates...