ARTIST STATEMENT
My work sits in the space between low art and high art, art and entertainment, pop culture and philosophy. Silly and ridiculous meets philosophical, political, and serious, often in the same space. I’m interested in what happens when big ideas are performed in entertaining ways: not trivialised, but made accessible, so an audience finds pleasure in dealing with big, challenging ideas. Aesthetically and conceptually, I draw on queer strategies rooted in camp, trash, drag, messiness and failure.
My research and practice are inseparable, moving across storytelling, character, movement, and text. I draw on immersive and participatory theatre alongside popular forms such as cabaret, drag, and stand-up comedy. Much of my work is animated by questions around representation and starts from autobiographical material, but often moves into fantasy, magical realism, and invention, sitting between fact and fiction and finding truth in that in-between space. This work is rooted in queer subcultures, politics, and aesthetics, and consistently centres LGBTQI+ perspectives, using performance to explore identity, visibility, and belonging.
My practice is socially engaged: I create platforms for artists, particularly those who have faced barriers to entering the dance and theatre industry, and I build work that reflects a plurality of voices rather than a single point of view. Equality and inclusion shape how my work gets made, who makes it, and who it is for.
My interdisciplinary practice is fuelled by research, experimentation, and curiosity. It is rooted in a plurality of voices and a belief that art can build community, creating space for making sense of the contradictions we face in the world: the silly and the serious, the real and the fantasy.
Main areas of research:
• performing queerness
• queer subcultural & practices, including club, cabaret and pop cultures
• queering ballet
• directing interdiscplinary and collaborative processes
• embodied practice and performance presence
PUBLISHED WOrK
My scholarly writing includes:
(2023) ‘Queer Roots of Commercial Dance’ in Trahearn, A. Coommerical Dance: An Essential Guide. London: Routledge.
(2022). ‘Pink Feathers in the Ballet Closet: Three Gay Remakes of Swan Lake’ in D. Risner and B. Watson (eds.), Masculinity, Intersectionality, and Identity: Why Boys (Don’t) Dance. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
(2021). ‘Fag, Hag, Drag’ in Edwards, M. And Farrier S. (eds.) Drag Histories, Herstories and Hairstories. London: Methuen Drama.
(2011) with Klieman, G., and O’Brien, M., ‘Threesome’, in Dance Theatre Journal, 24, 4
I regularly present at international conferences, most recently at the University of Malta (2024).
I have also written for culture and fashion outlets including Gay Times, QX, and Pop Magazine, and I was the assistant editor for Condé Nast UK’s Love Magazine.
