Joanne Tremarco
The Birth of Death Interactive performance ritual/ theatre piece made with Yael Karavan. Photo courtesy of Dan Burwood.
For 18 years Joanne’s performance work has centered around the archetype of the fool to hold space for healing, play, laughter, celebration, tears and difficult conversations.
The work of the fool is a reflective practice that endeavours to notice (not-ice / melt) internal power dynamics. Observing, owning up to and playing all the parts in our internalised monarchies, patriarchies and supremacies. Joanne’s audiences are invited to participate in a ritual (rich you all) of re-pair to call back the space trash of our inner lives, the bits we banished for not fitting in. By un-censoring herself in the moment she allows for conversation with the repressed, wounded and ignorant parts.
Everything we see, hold and taste came from the inner world- a vegetable came from the inside of a seed, the first bomb first existed as an in- visible idea. If everything originates in the inner world, can we create a new outer world from here?
The fool sees every conflict and challenge as an opportunity for dis - covery and growth. Yet, the open-hearted fool must attend to the thin- King. Can the fool disrupt the cycles of violence and create space for breath, acknowledgement or a change of direction.
i. Savera UK ii. Hear Here Herstory community textile unveiling.
“For several years my practice has been concerned with supporting our rights to powerful rites of passage, birth death and sex. In 2022 I approached my in-fertility journey as a rite of passage, collecting the blood from my failed attempts at conception to create paintings. This powerful ritual connected me to a lineage of painters running back to the beginning of humanity. How could patriarchy have led us to believe that men were the first painters when people with wombs produce pigment each month. The denigrating of womb magic to the realm of uncleanliness led to a rift in this lineage.
In 2021 I joined a 300-mile pilgrimage to Cop 26, along a ley line known as the s Spine of Albion Creating interactive performance, ceremonies and a community textile exploring climate grief on route. At Cop26, living with indigenous community leaders, I became aware of the similarities between the fool’s and indigenous ways of seeing human and non-human centric interconnectedness. In 2023 I walked 500 miles down the same energy line performing a contemporary mummers (folk) play.
My lifelong interest in observing and challenging power dynamics has led me to my current position at Collective Encounters Theatre for Social Change where I am working with community as an artist researcher, to create artworks and collate opinions into visual a visual report with a view to impact local services.
As a neuro divergent facilitator, I am currently dedicating time to finding ways of meeting and holding the intersection between individuals access needs (deafness, hard of hearing, visual impairments, autism, ADHD, mobility). Recognising the inequity and exclusion that the deaf community have experienced regarding artistic engagement, I have been collaborating with Deaf artists Maral Mamaghanizadeh, Zoe Mc Whiney, Cherie Gordan, Mia Ward and Lara Edwards to explore BSL integrated performance work.”
Joanne is an interdisciplinary artist working in performance, painting, textiles, film and installation. With 20 years’ experience making thoughtful work with and for a range of communities; supporting people to make beautiful creations out of their lived experience. She’s also a doula of Birth and Death, healer and forager.
Discover more at www.foolsizetheatre.com