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

FUSION FESTIVAL.DE

Fusion Festival 2012 was one of the most exciting  events i have been a part of for ages! I loved every single bit of it! I loved it so much I didn't want to go home and forgot to take any pictures.

Fusion festival is based in east Germany. The festival is held on an old aircraft base, that is dotted with aircraft hangers, these become the amazing and unique venues in which the party takes place. Each venue was so different and so much love and attention had gone into the decor and the lighting etc. It really was quite epic. The festival is run by volunteers interested in community living/lifestyle and communist principals, activists and communities of artists. The ethics behind the organization of the event really shine through. Everybody is clearly working towards a common goal, which is to make something amazing happen! There is no emphasis on profiteering in any way from the event. Im not exactly sure where in east germany we were, the artists were taken care of so well we didn't have to do anything ourselves.  we were collected from the airport in shuttle cars on the way there and took a double decker bus to get back to Bristol. Throughout the festival crew members were able to purchase bottles of beer at the crew bar for 50cents, I cannot even begin to explain how great that was!!!

All in all It really brought it home to me, why the UK festival scene grew to become what it is now. what it represents to the people who attend the events and how it has lost it's way amidst becoming some kind of business for those that work it. Surely there is a way we can return to our roots and find that love of it once more.

When people are truely creative and give there all into a Project/event like this it really changes and affects the atmosphere of the place for the  guests who come to visit feel and become part of the love that made it happen, and that is very special!

For more information about fusion festival you can check them out HERE but for goodness sakes please go, especially if you have ever wanted/dreamed of going to burning man, then you should go here, it will be much less expensive and is just as awesome!



















I was an artist at fusion with the Bassline Circus, Bassline is a company that specialise in creating Cbaraves (a crossover between a cabaret and a rave) The show is performed to a live set by resident music producer Alex Kopecky, the show is performed to bespoke visuals, there is also live MCs and vocalists that perform....for more about the Bassline family see HERE






We had a pretty exciting run up to our shows, we had a few problems with our tent and eventually the tent masters and the riggers had to make the extreemly difficult desicion that we would not be able to do the shows unless the king poles were swapped out for better ones (they had some severe frost damage) The tent was hired by fusion for us to manage, so the company turned up on tuesday and worked throught the night to take it down, swap out the poles and put it back up again.  Obviously this meant that though we were very close to being ready to open the venue, we had to take everything out of the tent and put everything back in again, leaving us considerably behind schedule to tech, rehearse, and run the show before opening to the public. However as usual we all pulled our weight and together we managed to do this amazing feat and still make a show!!! we should be very proud of ourselves for that... here are some pics of our tent up and down party.

Tent going down on Tuesday evening

King Poles get hoisted middle of tuesday night/wed morning

Canvas goes back up early wed morning.

 That was not the last of our tent dramas either, there were a couple of very exciting storms, where it was all hands on deck to secure the already slightly wobbly structure as best we could, all in all it made for a lot of extra adrenaline in and around the show.

In the end we of course we pulled off a brilliant show (under the extreme conditions) we always do pull through, that's what makes us really great, against all odds we do our best, and then we celebrate .... hard, because we deserve to!

Here are a couple of snaps of my act from the show.

and finally i'll add the few pictures that i took around site there aren't many but I was having too much fun to look through the lens x

Bassline Alex, the music maker

ALEX

best tech tower ever

Like these colors

Bassline tent with projection on it

Performing at the York Minster Cathedral

The York minster Cathedral is one of the largest and most famous cathedrals in Europe, It has housed Royal Weddings and Its Minister is The Archbishop of York, and holds the second highest seat in the Church of England. The York minster was built between 1220 and 1472 when it was finally completed and consecrated. It is one of the most famous and sacred cathedrals in the world!

more curious about the York minster?
see HERE



Its difficult to describe the total epic feeling inside this building, It is truly marvelous, In one room 'The Chapter House' the walls are lined with tiny apple sized gargoyles, each one bearing a different face, and each one full of expression and character. The detail inside the building is incredible and it is not in any way surprising that it took over two hundred years to build.


 Last weekend, for a special occasion, something exceptional happened at the York minster cathedral, the most notable being that The interior was turfed with real green grass!

Click HERE to watch the BBC news coverage on the Grassy Cathedral.

I guess they couldn't resist a little photo shoot!

 Now you have to admit, that's pretty crazy. This was all in aid of a special fundraising Jubilee dinner to help with the ongoing costs of the buildings maintenance. The theme of the event was Alice in Wonderland and the entertainment for the guests was provided by Incandescence, Cornish based circus theatre company' www.incandescence.co.uk

This all meant that I had the special opportunity of being able to dress up very silly and dance about on real green grass, inside this iconic building, something that I'm fairly certain I will never get to do again!

Never before have such antics taken place in a consecrated cathedral! 19 circus performers and musicians created a colorful and unusual welcome for the guests of the jubilee fundraising dinner. The sights included, a hand standing door-mouse, a hedgehog (who was desperately escaping from the croquet ball) a selection of playing cards, some of whom were riding flamingo's, the mad hatter, the white rabbit, the march hare, the queen of hearts, and of course Alice. As well as greeting the guests with a fantastical and bizzarre walkabout, the company also performed two short stage shows during dinner, showcasing some of the UKs finest skills and circus talent!

Here are a few snaps from the event..

me in my undergarments!

loved this look!

Our Changing room at the York Minster.

The Queen of Hearts, The Mad Hatter and The Hedgehog

Queen of Hearts

The Band

Jo Palmer performs the aerial hoop

Later after the event finished we went back to our travel lodge hotel with the band, got very drunk and danced to Balkan beats into the early hours of the morning.

Thanks Incandescence, that was a real treat x