Marisa Carnesky uses spectacular entertainment forms, including fairground devices and stage illusion, and draws on themes of contemporary ritual, to investigate social issues from an ecofeminist perspective.
26 Facts About Marisa Carnesky
1.
2.
Marisa Carnesky has won many awards, including the Laurence Olivier for Best Entertainment in 2004, Edinburgh Festival Herald Angel in 2005 and Time Out Best Theatre in 2004.
3.
Marisa Carnesky studied ballet at London's West Street Ballet School followed by two years of a degree in Dance and Choreography at the Laban Dance Centre.
4.
In 2003, Marisa Carnesky created The Girl from Nowhere, a collaboration with the magician Paul Kieve and Hilary Westlake, director of the experimental theatre group Lumiere and Son.
5.
Girl from Nowhere led towards Marisa Carnesky's best known and most ambitious work, Marisa Carnesky's Ghost Train, in 2004, which took migrant journeys as its subject.
6.
Marisa Carnesky told the Telegraph, 'When you go on a ghost train you become displaced.
7.
Marisa Carnesky's train was a 400-square-metre wide fairground ride, built in a disused car factory in Dagenham.
8.
In 2007, Marisa Carnesky created Magic War, inspired by the French government's use of the stage magician, Robert Houdin, to suppress an uprising in Algeria in 1856.
9.
Marisa Carnesky appeared as Athena the goddess of strategic war, reimagined as a stage magician performing illusions, accompanied by a male stage assistant, played by various actors.
10.
Marisa Carnesky, assisted by Lisa Lee of Lipsinkers, offered students 'classes in esoteric PE, situationist clowning, unpopular expressionism and transmetaformism.
11.
In 2022, Marisa Carnesky began leading a three year BA degree course in Contemporary and Popular Performance for the Rose Bruford College.
12.
Marisa Carnesky played the role of a morbid 'Madame Tussauds'-esque showwoman guiding audiences through her 'bizarre exhibition of curious nameless bodies that merge flesh with beautifully constructed wounds and organs made of wax, silk and embroidered felt.
13.
The Time Out listing described the show: 'Marisa Carnesky, long fascinated with the body as a site of abjection and storytelling, draws on her penchant for the uncanny with a Halloween show unlike any other.
14.
Marisa Carnesky's Tarot Drome, first staged at the Old Vic Tunnels in 2012, was a large-scale promenade show using interactive installations, skate routines, Mexican wrestling and a live rock band.
15.
Audience members, given their own card reading using the Tarot of Marseilles, were invited on an interactive journey in which Marisa Carnesky played ringmaster to a dozen Tarot card figures.
16.
The title of her thesis was 'Dr Marisa Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman, Reinventing Menstrual Rituals Through New Performance Practices'.
17.
Marisa Carnesky put on a stage show, in which she appeared as a lecturer presenting a condensed version of her research.
18.
Power and Marisa Carnesky wrote, 'We believe that disregard for the cycles of the human body echoes a disregard for the cycles of the planet and for each other.
19.
Dr Marisa Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman, produced by Lara Clifton with dramaturgy from Kira O'Reilly, toured widely.
20.
In 2019, Marisa Carnesky presented a new work in progress, Showwoman.
21.
Marisa Carnesky was embodied by performers like Koringa from the Bertram Mills Circus who had a concrete block broken over her stomach and laid on a bed of nails as well as work for the French resistance.
22.
Marisa Carnesky was there in Lulu Adams the first known British woman clown who went on performing despite the tragic and sudden death of her performing partner and husband.
23.
Marisa Carnesky was there in Marjorie Dare dressed in leather in the 1920's riding a motorbike on the wall of death.
24.
Clown and chief researcher Marisa Carnesky openly admits she'll leave the dangerous stuff to others, but ties the show together with moments of levity and reflection.
25.
Marisa Carnesky wrote and directed a mini documentary to accompany the live show, which can be seen on YouTube.
26.
Marisa Carnesky's Showwomxn Sideshow Spectacular was a large scale outdoor promenade performance made by Marisa Carnesky for the revival of Bartholomew Fair in London's Smithfield Market on 16 September 2023.