"Blood Show" - “a trans celebration of destroying things” at Battersea Arts Centre

From the creator of Shorty, about a “non-binary drag child”

Fancy a show about blood?

Well you’re in luck.

Recently I discovered an advert for Blood Show, “a trans celebration of destroying things” playing at Battersea Arts Centre (BAC).

Blood Show is the third part in “trans and non-binary” artist Ocean Hester Stefan Chillingsworth’s “Extinction Trilogy”:

Three works (Monster Show, Blood Show and Nature Show) present a slow experiment in masking performers and trying to delete humans from the stage, in order to make us think more about our curiosity into what people ‘really’ look like.

Very relatable.

Chillingworth’s website spoils viewers with more blood…

… and a biography, which spells out that “they” is none too keen on white cis types (who is these days?)

Shame, because demand must be pretty high to work on Blood Show, as well as with an artist clearly pushing the boundaries of intellectual possibility.

Chillingsworth’s research “includes slippage of language, age and gender (cf. my non-binary drag child Shorty), the 'pathetic epic' as a mode of Queerness, and transness of forms.”

Here’s Shorty, the “non-binary drag child”:

Shorty takes an “urgent and delicate look at the experience of the trans child” and “toilet-trauma”, among other areas; real issues of our time, I’m sure you will agree.

How much?

Although Chillingsworth has had a few grants here and there, they’re not very noteworthy in the Woke Waste grand scheme of things *although taxpayers may be interested to know they helped bring Shorty to life (via Arts Council England funding):

Another show (funding from the National Lottery via ACE):

Battersea Arts Centre (BAC), the venue in which Blood Show is playing, is another matter, though.

From 2019-2023 it’s received £4.5 million in total taxpayer funding:

In spite of this, its Artistic Director & CEO, Tarek Iskander, recently hinted that arts funding could be better…

… including retweeting a piece by The Stage’s Lyn Gardner which argued: “if the arts and theatre are to thrive, Labour can’t just pay lip service. Action and funding are urgently required.”

You get the gist. It’s the usual “the arts/ NHS/ public sector on their/its knees” line we hear from the Wokies. Everything’s to blame for state bodies having their financial knickers in a twist - Tory austerity/ lack of funding/ Covid/ the Australian Olympic breakdancer/ ANYTHING other than, I dunno, whether people want to see Blood Show. And that’s before we get to some of BAC’s other productions…

How many, for instance, rushed to see First Trimester - about a transgender artist’s search for a sperm donor (awarded £64,000 by The National Lottery)?

Or “Oozing Gloop”, the “world’s premier green, autistic drag queen”?

And what about upcoming Soliloquio, “A festive procession followed by a poignant performance exorcizing centuries of injustice and shining a light on indigenous cultures”?

Or how about staying home and eating some Wotsits?

But yeah, arts funding, ey…

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