The Devil in the Woods
The festivities are in full swing when wanderers get sidetracked by a pair of alluring nymphs. Accosted and enticed through the forest into a dimly lit clearing, festival-goers are ritually bathed and bound to a tree. The spirits embody hypnotic grace, and unsettling, near-psychotic chaos. They instruct the ‘prisoners’ to prepare to meet Pan, ancient guardian of wild places. Each person is left alone to contemplate: what would you offer to a god of the wilderness? If he approves, he will grant you the wish of your heart’s deepest desire.
Pan arrives, at first hiding in the shadows, playing his flute, and then revealing himself. Each interaction unfolds spontaneously and remains unique. Pan himself plays with his identity both as god and servant of God, sometimes speaking to the latter. Eventually, Pan is accosted and gives himself over festival-goers, in this live, non-formulaic theatre piece.
Immersive Ritual Theatre, Touch & Play, Glastonbury, 2022
This part-ritual, part-immersive-performance explored the tension between between beauty and fear. The allusions to pre-Christian pagan god Pan, who embodied the wild natural order of things (both terrifying and delightful) is contrasted with our modern day understanding of the evil, red-horned Devil. This piece opened up a embodied dialogue around our binary constructs of good and evil, and the ecstatically alive uncertainty that exists in between: in the ecosystem of life, the predator/prey dynamic is a constantly shifting and necessary cycle.
Resurrection of the Bucca
A “Happening" for Shamans, Decom, 2023
In this workshop-performance piece, we meet again with Pan, known in the West Country as Bucca: the Primal, Wild One, who lives beyond the normal rules of society.
Drawing from Butoh and Baol’s Theatre of the Oppressed, participants are invited to inhabit the somatic reality of their wildness through full-body exercises that created a field of group intelligence and synergy. This culminated in a ‘happening’ to resurrect the spirit of humanity, which refuses to be subjugated. The Bucca, represented by a decorated staff, lay prostrate on the ground, while participants explored the emergence of their animal selves, awakening to their own power. The Bucca was eventually claimed and resurrected by the group in a moment of sponteneity, serving as a reminder of Bucca's wild wisdom: that beneath civilization's veneer lurks an unbroken wild essence that refuses domestication.
This work asked: what parts of ourselves have we caged in the name of progress? What ancient wisdom might we reclaim through embodied rebellion?
Masked Tarot Theatre
A co-created living, embodied, Oracular Organism, Decom, 2024
Imagine Tarot, but instead of cards you have live actors wearing masks. An Oracle is designated and a question is sought from the participants/performers. The masked ‘actors’ are possessed by the question, and, liberated from the confines of their usual identities, they perform a ‘happening’ in response. After a time, the Oracle calls "Stop!" and "reads" the performance to give the querent their answer. This experiment was then brought out to the wider field of the festival, with the crowd asking questions. This added layer of witnessing offered an experience that arose from a greater group field of wisdom.
Look At Me!
Performance-Based Workshop, Buddhafield, 2024
What lives in the space between longing to be seen and fearing exposure? Through structured partner work and group exercises inspired by performance art and somatic practice, participants explored the intimate territory of giving and receiving attention. Moving through carefully designed witnessing practices, from subtle energetic exchanges to longer improvised performance pieces in a witnessing circle, participants discovered and re-shaped their relationship with visibility.
This piece subverted the traditional workshop power dynamic of facilitator-participant, by putting the participant in the spotlight and letting the facilitator take a ‘back-seat’ position.
This piece served as an exploration of the space that lives between performance, where participants give the experience, and workshop, where participants receive the experience. Questioning the tired binary of performer/receiver, facilitator/participant, this piece of theatre honoured the artistry of each ‘player’, while moving beyond the need to glorify them. It instead centred the intelligence of the moment, especially when held within a sacred container of intentionality, play and witnessing.
Anarchy Magic Camp
A radical embodiment workshop, Boomtown 2023
This experimental workshop-performance piece explored the intersection of quantum consciousness, somatic practice and radical embodied activism.
Our mind affects quantum particles.
Our breath directs powerful energy.
Play is our greatest weapon.
By combining rigorous somatic practice with quantum theory and improvisation, participants experienced firsthand how consensus reality might be more malleable than we've been led to believe. This piece operated at the fertile intersection of performance art, political resistance, and consciousness exploration, suggesting that perhaps our greatest tool for systemic change lies in our ability to imagine and embody new possibilities together. The workshop culminated in a spontaneous ritual dance to resurrect the unified goddess, previously fractured into good/bad, holy/whore by the Church.