On 4th March 2012 I’ll be performing [deletia] as part of Tempting Failure at the Bierkeller Theatre in Bristol. This event is being organised by Thomas John Bacon, and many more details can be found here on his site.

I spent 3 days at the end of October learning about pro wrestling as part of the Breaking Kayfabe workshop organised by Jamie Lewis Hadley & Live Art Development Agency.

My other half is a wrestler, he has been for about 15 years I think, so I know a fair bit about it. Since meeting him and learning more about the world of wrestling I’ve come to see it as a form of theatre with definite links & connections to the work I do. Pushing the body and presenting pain to an audience, turning gestures into narrative & emotions. This all happens in the wrestling ring too.

The 3 days in which I learnt wrestling techniques, how to lock up, how to fall safely, how to move around the ring correctly were so much  more physically and emotionally intense than I expected. I was terrified by falling backwards, really struggled with overriding my physical instincts to make sure I landed in the correct way, I was scared to keep going, to keep falling even when everything already hurt. I cried more than once.

But I also achieved more than I ever thought I would. I’ve never seen myself as a sporty, athletic person, I thought these acrobatic wrestling moves would be way beyond me.

I actually sat out on the second day as people were taught how to take a hip toss as I didn’t believe I could do it, but eventually I realised that the only thing stopping me was my own fear and laziness. On the third day of the workshop I pushed myself to try it, and I did it. More than once. With a huge, huge grin on my face.  It’s an incredible feeling, similar what I experience when doing suspensions, I took control of myself physically and mentally. I realised I’m a lot tougher than I thought.

I was left battered and bruised, I failed to listen to instruction, went with instinct instead and as a result have injured my knee. It’s going to take about a month to heal.  I had a huge bruise on my back from hitting the ring posts incorrectly, or repeatedly, I don’t know which. Despite all this I’m elated, I feel stronger, I know my body better, I know I don’t deal well with pain I’m not in control of, and I now know that I can overcome that.

I learnt a hell of a lot more than just the wrestling moves.

This isn’t even mentioning the other people involved, the brilliant supportive teachers – Jamie, Greg, Garry & Phil, the other course participants – a mix of artists, dancers and actors, who all bought new perspectives into the ring, who kept the whole thing amazingly fun no matter how much we hurt and I don’t think I could have got through it without them all.

The strangest thing is, I woke up the day after the course had finished, struggled to get out of bed due to the massive aches in my neck, shoulders, knees, thighs, and really, really wished I could be doing it all over again.

I discovered Justin Novak‘s Disfigurine series through Street Anatomy. Delicate, white & wounded. I love them.

“The ceramic figurine has historically embodied a mainstream, bourgeois ideology, and for this reason, I have employed it in the presentation of an alternative vision, an ironic anti-figurine, or ‘disfigurine.’ In the ‘disfigurine’ series, physical wounds such as bruises and lacerations serve as metaphors for psychological harm. Whereas the figurine has historically represented the dominant culture’s norms and ideals, the disfigurines speak of the damage inflicted by those very same expectations”

See the full series and more of Justin’s work on his site.

Well this is pretty awesome. My Red Rabbit/Double R Club performance got a mention in The Independent!

“A woman dubbed Traumata pulled needles out from under the skin of her forehead. The blood ran down over her white corset and underwear as she lifted her arms into the cruciform pose, looking like a sexualised female Christ minus the crown of thorns.”

Read the full article here: Come To The Cabaret. My first time in the national press!

[Image credit: Soulstealer.co.uk]

Warm Leatherette - The Normal

Couldn’t let this one pass without comment – bought to my attention by Ballardian on Twitter this morning, this bizarre and wonderful list of car crash songs on Wikipedia is well worth a browse. As a fan of Warm Leatherette and other Crash-inspired tunes, this is a real treat.

Red shoes are iconic and this brief history goes someway into explaining why, from Hans Christian Anderson to Louboutin, it’s worth a read.

[Img: Self taken iPhone snap of performance aftermath, at the Belle Epoque Ball]

New work from Traumata will be shown at the opening night of the of the This Is So Wrong exhibition at Bethnal Green’s  Resistance Gallery. Full details of the event and the exhibition are here.

The piece will be a further exploration of ritual, relics and memories, expanding on my most recent installation at Torture Garden.

First thing I want to totally enthusiastically urge you to check out is the work of animator David O’Reilly.

I don’t know much about Mr O’Reilly other than what I read on his website earlier today, but  can say that the first film I saw of his ‘Please Say Something’ blew my mind. Sweet and sad and touching and tragic, not to mention stunningly animated, this is so so worth the 10 minutes of your life it’ll take to watch.

Please Say Something from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Incredible right? Not suprisingly it has won a billion prizes at various film festivals

Today I saw ‘The External World’, his latest work. It’s similarly beautiful but twisted and hilarious (If you share my sense of humour) At points it reminds me of Chris Morris’s JAM and at other times it’s pretty Lynchian. But yes, recommended.

The External World from David OReilly on Vimeo.

Excellent before & after portraits from my piece last night at The Double R Club.

More shots from the night by the brilliant, lovely Mat Ricardo on his Flickr here, and the custom outfit I’m wearing – white corset & sleeve – were made by Freyagushi Couture.

In a nameless city deluged by a continuous rain… three rabbits live with a fearful mystery

Tomorrow night I’ll be performing a new piece devised especially for The Double R Club. It’s inspired by the series David Lynch released through his website – Rabbits – and incorperates some elements I’ve been exploring in performances for a while now.

It doesn’t have a title yet, in my head I’m calling it Red Rabbit after the sinister character that appears part way through the series, so that might stick. We’ll see.

I’ve been a bit concerned about the slow, still, non-narrative nature of this piece, and how that will get over with an audience more used to surreal cabaret. Then I re-read this essay on Rabbits and found this quote from Mr. David Lynch:

“They want things to move fast, but it’s like water-skiing : when you go fast, you stay on top – you never get below the surface.”

I’m going to bare that in mind.

[For more info on The Double R Club, click here - and come along, I fully recommend it.]