My road so far has been a glorious, and sometimes bafflingly, winding one. With so many trails to tempt me in different directions, it’s impossible to choose just one. Will I ever stop wandering into colourful corners of the wilderness? I certainly hope not.
In my twenties I danced on stages across the world as a stilt-walking alien, shape-shifting Goddess and body popping cyborg, entertaining the global Hawkwind family and space rock fanatics. I danced at Manchester clubs illumiNaughty and Monster Monster and at festivals around the UK with a fierce troupe of warrior women called Ultra Violet Violence. I also found my creative partner in crime Miss Laura McGee.
After the Ultra Violet Violence troupe turned into a duo called The Ultra Violets, I started devising the LABOLIS immersive theatre series in which the streets of Manchester where turned into an urban Labyrinths. LABOLIS has been funded by Cornerhouse’s Micro Commission scheme, The Paul Hamlyn Foundation and Arts Council England.
Labolis Threshold from Marinos Chrysanthou on Vimeo.
With The Ultra Violets I have collaborated with the Peaches Christ team from San Francisco, danced for The Levellers, created abstract choreography for A Queer Review, made music videos, performed in fashion shows, appeared at film festivals in Switzerland, choreographed cabaret shows for AND Festival and also produced a number of events at Cornerhouse and HOME Mcr (Declan Clarke’s The Most Cruel of All Goddesses and Humberto’s Velez’s The Storming).
After meeting artist and tattooist Loren Fetterman (and eventually marrying him) we dabbled in performance art together. Written in Skin was the result and our first project together, it saw the poetry of strangers blood-lined into my skin for 6hrs during a live performance at Manchester’s Cornerhouse Art Gallery.
Next came KAIROS which saw me this time strapped to a giant 12ft timepiece which spun for 4hrs whilst Loren hurled gloss paint and daubed poetry on my body. I have given lectures about these topics to students at Manchester University and Wimbledon Art College as well the first ‘Trans-States – The Art of Crossing Over’ conference at the University of Northampton, where I also showcased a solo piece of performance art called ‘ReInstate :: A Mirror Ritual‘.
I also write horror fiction and my first published short story Mother’s Nature appeared in Martian Migraine Press’s Cthulhusattva : Tales of Black Gnosis. A book of my (very early) poetry Unstables Fables is also available to buy via Amazon. I have also appeared in Comet Press’s The Year’s Best Hardcore Horror, Salomé Magazine, Apex Magazine and won Forbidden Future’s Weird Fiction Write Off.
((Oh, and if you’re thinking of getting hitched I am also a fully trained Humanist Celebrant and plan weddings with unusual creative twists, check out Alternative Weddings MCR if you’d like to hear more about that!))
STEFANIE ELRICK - WRITER & ARTIST 