The Skeleton Maze began as a string of independent artistic investigations into an experience of ego-loss / emptiness / abyss and void.
Namely in an illustration series exploring dream and visionary states, in a solo spoken word album, and a somatic dance practice which uses tarot to inform an improvisation (now a regular public class titled ‘Arcane Dance’, at Space Six in Newcastle). These artistic ventures were interwoven with and informed by research into various religious and spiritual explanations of / encounters with absolute emptiness, and different socio-cultural maps of underworld systems.
This was the beginning of my attempt to contextualise an experience of depersonalisation, encountered numerously as a ripple of an incident in which I was spiked in a club, and lost time.
I presented an initial scratch of The Skeleton Maze as an amalgam of these various artistic projects at Alphabetti Theatre in October 2018. Having done this and figured out my own voice and performance approach for this vast topic, which felt calm, playful, sincere, humorous and humble, it felt like The Skeleton Maze wanted to grow legs. It was time to involve other people, build community and conversation, and for the work to grow outside of me and my experiences as an individual.
I am now hugely excited for The Skeleton Maze to be a celebration of each person’s individual experience, and enable these to be shared and discussed, in supported conversations around identity politics, mental health, drugs laws/harm reduction, and magic/religion. I hope to challenge and affirm peoples’ realities by presenting them with a set of co-existing alternatives.