Why completing things changes us… and what happens when we don’t…

Last week Ella Mesma Company completed on a 7 day takeover at The Place with the BA1, and it did change me: in fact it felt like it changed all of us involved a little bit…

Here is why: Team Jelly consisted of David Evans (whom I have been working with ever since he attended an audition for the company back in 2017), Francesca Matthys, whom I was aware of since 2019 as a wonderful human, Diana (whom I met whilst work at the Afro-Latin fest in Johannesburg in 2019) suggested we connect, but it was my first time working with (the first of many!) and Ama Rouge (with whom I also celebrated 21 years of friendship this week!) and we really were a power team… in the mornings, before we met with students we had our own check in, the same in the evenings after the sessions… each time reflecting, learning and refocusing our intention… we had a beautiful plethora of overlapping skills, and also were all able to take responsibility for areas were we were less skilled and share the load… and by the end of the project, I really understood how this unique combination of skills & time & reflection & getting practiced at holding tension meant that we really did made magic! I had so many beautiful messages from the students sharing how the project had changed them.

I was invited in to work with the BA1s (The Bloom Collective) for Enrichment week after the beautiful project, ‘Welcome to Our House’ which I created with Akeim Toussaint, because I had put wellbeing at the forefront of the project, and so I vowed to do that again…

Always it starts with wellbeing (because how you gonna win if you ain’t right within, Lauryn Hill), and then just so much magic on top from Kizomba, to company rep to collages, to filming and adding to our online world Utopia to Object animation to Fashion shows to yoga, to Voice work, to the jellyfish metaphor and Genius Loci work (thank you Piny Orchidaceae) my heart is so FULL and I am so inspired by the unique talent of each and every student (all 72 of them!) Go team Jelly!

Thank you so much to the beautiful team! Thank you so much to the beautiful cast/company/collective! Thank you to the costume department Emma Lyth & family who helped  create a beautiful Jellyfish fashion show! Thank you to all the staff at The Place who helped with glue & pens for collages. Thank you Team Jelly for the magic we made! And most of all to each beautiful individual of the Bloom Collective who moved me to tears with your art from the heart! You are all so creative, beautiful and shiny! ❤️ 🪼 🌟
I experienced that sense of completion and being changed again holding the tension of moving sets over the weekend: I collected a van in Leeds, drove it to Bradford, collected a set, drove it back to Leeds (to the wonderful Open Source Arts where I am a resident artist), then after unloading, I collected the rig for our next Rainbow Butterfly show (in Bicester for The Mill Arts Centre on the 16th & 17th February featuring Ama Rouge and myself. Sign up HERE) and drove that set to Bristol. The whole journey took me 7 hours in total (not including dropping off the van the next day!) and I spent a good part of that nervous and in tension… but I did it! And despite the resistance, I learnt that I am a good driver, and it also gave me many hours to reflect on life and realise how much I have to be grateful for over the past 7 years of transformation… and again… arriving in Bristol I was changed… that task that my identity told me was impossible and I couldn’t possibly… I DID IT!!!! 🙂