Marisa Carnesky: Obsessions of A Showwoman

Roll up, roll up! You are invited to an evening of performance and conversation celebrating the wonderful world of ‘showwomanry’ and the launch of the new book: Obsessions of A Showwoman, The Performance Worlds of Marisa Carnesky. 

Delve into the fascinating history of the unconventional and remarkable showwomen – fire walkers, clowns and alligator hypnotists, women who worked for themselves and were often called showgirls, in spite of their extraordinary skill and artistry.

Opening the show is a reading by Dr Jospehine Machon, followed by a discussion between Marisa Carnesky and Professor Vanessa Toulmin. This will be followed by a penal with some of the showwomen featured in the book: Lalla Morte, H Plewis and Lucifire, in conversation with author Ruth Ivo. The evening concludes with special performances by Parisian danger artist Lalla Morte and Showwoman Lucifire.   

Marisa Carnesky has been a pivotal figure in performance and live art over the past thirty years. As a showwoman, she champions alternative visions of matriarchal entertainment utopias and redefines women's relationships with power and politics. She carries on the legacy of dynamic female performers, showcasing remarkable theatrical flair and extraordinary talents with self-directed autonomy. Showwomen, as she emphasizes, work for themselves and they command the efforts of others. She is an Olivier Award Winning Showwoman and leads the new BA Contemporary and Popular Performance at Rose Bruford College. Her latest project, a large-scale immersive show, Carnesky’s Showwomxn Sideshow Spectacular was presented at the Brighton Festival (2024).  

Lucifire toured the globe for over 20 years as a speciality act, fire eater, circus performer, ring-mistress, and flesh-hook suspension artist.  Most recently she has been performing with the Austrian choreographer Florentina Holzinger in the production TANZ (2023)

Ruth Ivo has worked at various times as a showgirl, scarer of children on Carnesky’s Ghost Train in Blackpool, and area organiser at the likes of Glastonbury Festival. Her memoir Performance is published by Coronet (2024), ‘An enthralling volume with shades of Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin’ The Times. 

Lalla Morte specialises in Body Art and Sideshow Skills through a contemporary diverse lens. She co-founded the French troupe Murder Suicide Presents and created live events with underground art magazine HEY! La Cie. She performs in Carnesky’s Showwomxn Sideshow Spectacular (2023, 2024)    

H Plewis  has worked as a performer and choreographer with Carnesky Productions since 2008. She is also associated with Duckie, collaborating with the collective for over a decade, currently on The Posh Club and PC/DC. An all round live artist specialising in dance, H has worked across many contexts, most recently motherhood.  

Vanessa Toulmin is an English academic specialising in popular culture. She is Professor and Director of City Culture and Public Engagement at the University of Sheffield and founded the National Fairground and Circus Archive at the University of Sheffield. She In 2007, Toulmin was appointed Professor of Early Film and Popular Entertainment at the University of Sheffield, the first chair in this subject in a British university.  She is a director of the university's Festival of the Mind, established in 2011.  In 2020 she became chair of the Morecombe Winter Gardens Preservation Trust, which is restoring this celebrated theatre.  

Josephine Machon is a practitioner-researcher working in the expansive field of experiential performance and Research Resident at Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Published widely on immersive and interactive performance, her monographs include The Punchdrunk Encyclopaedia — 1st Edition (Routledge, 2019; 2^nd edition forthcoming), Immersive Theatres: Intimacy and Immediacy in Contemporary Performance (Bloomsbury, 2013) and (Syn)aesthetics: Redefining Visceral Performance (Palgrave Macmillan 2009, 2011). She has written about Marisa Carnesky’s work since 2000.   






 
Doors and bar open at 18:30. Please arrive no later than 15 minutes before the start time of this event.  

Half price tickets available for Members, Students, Under 26 and other concession groups. 

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