Pantomime, Performance & Black Feminism

1 hour

2025

Performed here at Amant Foundation, New York. 

With Chloee Maguile. ​

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Could a visit from your fairy godmother be just what you need to break free from the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy?  

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A 5-act performance drawn from my research into 'pantomime' historically in Britain and its former colonies, and as it’s still performed across local and national theatres every Christmas. Using comedy, raucous audience participation and sweets in return, traditional panto parodies European fairytales and comments on the politics of the day. Moving between lecture,  pantomime, fan-fiction, stand-up comedy, karaoke and panto and experiments in audience participation, my performance experiments with the radical political potential of slapstick & laughter.​​

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EXTRACT: 

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'So great is the responsive, fast-pace of the comic spectacle of pantomime that in the UK the word pantomime is used to denote ‘ridiculous clownery’ in everyday life. For example: ‘the state of politics in this country is a pantomime’, ‘the way that the university has handled this has been a bloody pantomime’, or ‘If I could describe my life in one word it would be pantomime’. The line between theatrical and everyday pantomime is excitingly thin. And so while perhaps there are some of you who have not been to a traditional pantomime before, in being part of this evening's performance, you’ll perhaps realise you sort-of have.

 

Some of you might even be starring in your own...' 

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Performed during my time as Amant Studio & Research Resident for Spring 2025. Curated by Tobi Maier and Patricia Hernandez. With thanks to Matilde Sirolli. 

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Photos: Marisa Hetzler

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