Performing Arts

Earth as Genderqueer Showwoman
This chapter is a conversation between Annie Sprinkle Beth Stephens and Marisa Carnesky. They reflect on the relationship between the show activism and ritual. They also imagine Sprinkle and Stephens' ecosexual ritual in a war-torn landscape if given the possibility. They introduce the idea of earth as a genderqueer Showwoman.

The Coven
In this chapter Amy Ridler reflects on meeting Marisa Carnesky and how she influenced her life career. She discusses her ideas of what a showwoman is and how it is to work together with other showwomen. Amy talks about the projects she was part of within Carnesky's company such as Dr Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman and Dystopian Wonders.

The Department of Feminist Conversations in Dialogue with Marisa Carnesky's Live Archive
The Department of Feminist Conversations is a collective exploring feminist modes of gathering and exchange. In this chapter we approach Marissa Carnesky's ‘Live Archive’ as a creative inspiration for writing about the politics of memory loss identity migration gender and belonging.

Ballad of the Bloody Pearl
In this chapter Daniel Oliver recalls the time he saw Marisa Carnesky in a documentary called XXXTripping on Channel 4 in the United Kingdom in 1998. The documentary was about sex death magic transgressive art and underground culture and included short sections from her performance with the Dragon Ladies entitled ‘Ballad of the Bloody Pearl’. Oliver discusses how it left a big impression on him and showed it to his parents as inspiration of what kind of performance artist he wanted to be.

Penny Slot Somnambulist
This chapter is about Marisa Carnesky's performance Penny Slot Somnambulist (2000–03). It was selected by Ron Athey and Vaginal Davis for their co-curation of the first UK Visions of Excess festival (2003). In this chapter a comparison is made between Carnesky's performance and ORLAN's Le Baiser de L'Artiste (The Kiss of the Artist 1977). Penny Slot Somnambulist binds the histories of fairground and performance art together to invite the audience to interact with the art.

From the Finishing School of Marisa Carnesky: Lessons in Doing It Together
Marisa Carnesky's Finishing School has shaped over a decade of performance makers of all ages in the early stages of their careers. Since starting at the Roundhouse in 2010 pupils have been admitted into what has been described as an ‘esoteric St Trinian's for the queer cabaret generation.’ This chapter takes five key lessons in ‘Doing It Together’ which considers the pedagogic processes at play in Carnesky's classroom.

Their Phantasmagorical Appearances
This chapter is a conversation between Tai Shani Geneva Foster Gluck and Marisa Carnesky. They discuss their creative process and their artistic visions. They talk about rituals political work and how their heritage influences their art. They also reflect on being showwomen and the complex politics of showwomanry.

Marisa Carnesky, Showwoman
This chapter positions Carnesky's performances to date as she suggests as ‘work’ at the intersection of aesthetic show-making and commercial show-business in order to explore what it is that she is attempting to present and make present how she does so and why it matters. According to Carnesky they ‘are always in the same vein but with a different emphasis: cultural identity as it lives in the unconscious folklore ritual sexual performance and the politics that surround women's bodies as entertainment’ (Carnesky 2012). Similarly she has been consistently fascinated by a particular aspect of ‘Showwomanry’: that which uses ‘the abject the taboo and the forbidden to create spectacle and magic’ (Carnesky 2015).

Showwomen Who Risk It All
This chapter is a conversation between Lucifire Lalla Morte Miss Behave and Marisa Carnesky where they discuss artistic practice and the difference between working as a showwoman and a showman. The artists reflect on representing themselves as exotic the thrill of danger and how their heritage informs their art. They also talk about memories of performances they have done and of each other.

Finding Power in Pathos
In 2020 a group of emerging artists joined Carnesky's Radical Cabaret School; it was the peak of lockdown when Covid had dominated our lives. Similar to processes and principles Carnesky employs in her own performance work this course encouraged artists to create and develop work that sought to engage with contemporary politics whilst finding power in ones' identity. In particular Carnesky's teachings and methodology of ‘finding power in pathos’ became a tool for understanding performance's impact and how its radical nature can foster shared identification political transformation and community.

Shape Changing: The Metamorphosis of a Showwoman
In this chapter Vanessa Toulmin reflects on meeting Marisa Carnesky for the first time and how Carnesky influenced her work and life. The author discusses working on Carnesky's Ghost Train together Toulmin as the researcher and Carnesky as the artist. She also looks back at her other research projects and how Carnesky encouraged her to become a producer.

Weird Women
Weird women this chapter proposes are artists who challenge boundaries and are uneasy within neat already existing categories of art sex identity and desire. Their existence is emphatic; yet the categories we already have cannot account for the complexity of who they are. Weird women seem to suggest that a new language is necessary one that will point towards our unnamed desires blind spots and unknowns. The weird not only points to something we do not yet have the language for but also demands a reconsideration of its articulation. The weird could be thought of as another category but more accurately as a fascination with the uncategorized.

A Showwoman of a Certain Rage: Marisa Carnesky's Bleeding Spectacular
This chapter charts Carnesky's key ‘performance-rituals of passage’ through Jewess Tattooess (1998-2001) Carnesky's Ghost Train (2004; 2008-2011) to Dr. Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman (2017-2018). The visceral aesthetics of Carnesky's showwomanry - magic marvels illusion horror and the persistent presence of blood – pervade Dr. Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman to offer alternative visions of womanhood. Through sensational performance rituals Carnesky's ensemble demonstrates a revolutionary position to ideology power and politics. In examining this work the chapter considers how Carnesky's showwomen are vital to a broader feminist performance practice; one that celebrates the dawning of a new (r)age of the menopausal woman in bloody spectacular ways.

Introduction: Marisa Carnesky — Sorceress, Radical School Mistress, Showwoman
Kartsaki introduces Marisa Carnesky to the reader as an indomitable sorceress an eccentric magicienne and a Showwoman. The introduction reflects on the ways in which Carnesky's trajectory of performance practice merging genres and creating community as well as her significant work as an educator.

The Making of a Future Showwoman
This chapter is a reflection of Empress Stah's career so far. She discusses meeting Marisa Carnesky and how this further informed her art. She reflects back on her youth in a rural town and how she never fit the stereotype of what aerial artists looked or acted like. The chapter continues with a callback to one of her shows called Empress Stah in Space for which she did a lot of research into spacecraft and ended up with a laser beam coming from between her buttocks.

Incredible Bleeding Women I
This chapter is a conversation between Rhyannon Styles Livia Kojo Alour Veronica Thompson and Marisa Carnesky where Carnesky asks the other artists about their experience working on the show Dr Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Women. They discuss their involvement what it means to be a showwoman means and navigating the life of showwomanry.

Her Spectacular Entrances
Her Spectacular Entrances sees Showwoman and performance maker Marisa Carnesky chart the research processes and productions of her 30 year career in the UK. It explores the projects that have defined her work including the solo show Jewess Tattooess in the 1990s the large-scale ride Carnesky's Ghost Train in the 2000's the company stage show Dr Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman in the 2010s through to the stage and promenade performances of Showwomen in the 2020's. It proposes the potential power of the word Showwoman as a development from the term Showgirl and explores how new communities of women performers inhabit it. Carnesky looks at the relationship of her practice and contemporary performers to lesser-known women's performance heritage. Moreover she considers the drive to sustain a long term practice of making cross genre performance work that draws both from art and entertainment traditions.