Performance at Emergency 25

On Saturday 27th September I performed as part of Emergency 25, "Manchester’s 25th micro-marathon of the bizarre, the bold, and the beautiful" performance art at Contact Theatre. I was delighted to be included in the full-day programme featuring 23 different performance artists from Manchester and beyond.

Of course, the Northern trains were delayed, so I arrived an our late for the set up than planned, thankfully we still had just enough time to get everything sorted and do the sound check, with the assistance of the incredible tech team on-site.

I reconstructed the "Hate Dress" from the fragments after its destruction at Central Saint Martins Post-Graduate show, for this performance, to emphasise the cyclical nature of abuse, trauma and recovery and the ongoing need for community support.

Alongside the peformance, we screened Jeff Kew' wonderful videos about the creation of the "Hate Dress" and the original Destruction of the "Hate Dress" on monitors.

I performed three times during the event, each performance was twenty minutes long. I decided to structure the performances as an emotional progression; respeaking the troll comments each time but changing the songs I performed afterwards; so, the first performance was reflective and sorrowful, the second performance was empowering, and the third performance (where I invited the audience to re-destroy the dress) was joyful and optimistic.

At the end of the first performance I ended on the floor.

Whereas at the end of the final performance, the fragments of the re-destroyed dress ended up in a pile on the floor!

My huge thanks go to my boyfriend, Johann, who supported me throughout.