Bacchanal
FEAST OF DIONYSUS
Saturday 19th September / 10pm-6am / Studio 338, London
A night of sacred transgression, divine madness, & ecstatic dissolution
'Dionysus is the god of all altered states, of all moments of being taken out of ourselves.'
(Karl Kerényi)
Fox&Badge invite you into the oldest party in the Western world - and the most misunderstood. Drawing from the ancient Greek rites of the god of wine, ecstasy, theatre and holy madness, we bow and honour Dionysus - the strangest of the Olympians: shape-shifting, neither fully human nor fully divine. The god who dissolves boundaries: between self and other, reason and rapture, the mortal and the divine.
He is the twice-born god: destroyed and remade, who extends that same invitation to everyone who follows him. He arrives from outside, refuses categorisation, and offers liberation - because he cannot be contained.
He is the god of theatre, of transformation, of the space between who you are and who you might become. From the ecstatic processions of his masked devotees, Greek drama was born. Tragedy and comedy alike grew from the rite. To wear the mask was not to disguise but to release the everyday self and allow something larger to speak. He is Lusios - the liberator, the loosener - and Bromios, the roarer. He carries the thyrsus: a fennel staff topped with a pine cone, a symbol of fertile, joyful, barely-contained power. His is the energy of the vine - slow-building, intoxicating, loosening the grip of the ego until something truer emerges.
At Fox&Badge, we know this energy. We have always been his devotees.
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ECSTATIC SOUND: The Komos (driving, melodic, feral techno played by an all-female pantheon) + The Nysa (deeper, more organic pulse) + The Odeion (live music, chanting and song)
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DIONYSIAN PERFORMANCE: maenads, satyrs, theatrical masks - ancient archetypes ferociously embodied - & lovingly sluiced with the wines of transformaton.
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IMMERSIVE RITES: transformed spaces dripping with ivy & grapes, silk & skins for sensual & sacred abandonment (think dungeon, wax play, shibari & massage galore)
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THEIA MANIA: a community of open hearts, loosened selves, and beautiful souls ready to ravage the mountain together - come explore…
'The god of wine is also the god of the theatre, because both wine and theatre dissolve the boundary between self and other.' (Walter Otto, Dionysus: Myth and Cult)
Plato named the experience of the gods theia mania - divine madness - not an affliction but a gift: the dissolution of the ego that cleanses, renews, and restores. Nietzsche saw it too: without the Dionysian, the Apollonian hardens into tyranny. Without ecstasy, something in us goes dark.
We give particular devotion to the Maenads - the female devotees of Dionysus: ordinary women, wives and mothers and weavers, called by the god into extraordinary liberation. They left the domestic behind. They ran barefoot into the mountains. In the grip of something larger than themselves, they possessed supernatural strength, suckled wild animals, caused milk and honey to spring from the earth in theophany. The presence of the wild god moved through them.
Come shed the defended self. Come let the music do what it does best: dissolve the boundary between you and the rest. Come wear the mask. Come be briefly and gloriously undone!
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DELIGHTS TO EXPLORE…
Studio 338, our host for the evening, is an awesome space that was once the largest venue in London, and enables us to host the very highest of productions, powered by impeccable sound and light, and including:
The Komos - largest dancefloor; all-female DJ lineup playing darker, driving beats, summoning the ancestral. The Komos was the epicentre of Dionysian release - the procession that became possession.
The Theatron - our immersive performance stages, sewn through the dancefloor, and visited by an array of gods and deities, including aerialists soaring back to Olympos
The Nysa - smaller dancefloor, playing deeper, more organic and sensual sounds, for non-stop dancing & frenzying.
The Odeion - new indoor live music chamber; choral performance, solo sets, bands, jam sessions, and collective singing.
The Temenos - sacred precinct of tantra, conscious touch, breathwork and embodiment ritual.
The Antron - darker cave and space of dungeon, bondage, wax and shadow play
The House of Rope & Ivy - surrender to shibari restraint and the liberations of constriction.
The Nymphaion - chamber of massage; a feast of flesh, surrender and exchange, reciprocity and care.
The Agora - central plaza hosting hourly events for singles and others to meet and conjoin.
The Alsos - expansive soft chillout space; the sacred grove. Rest, intertwine, connect & flow.
The Hestia - hearth & sanctuary of wellbeing angels; visit for care, compassion, conversation, divinations & tea.
The Baccheion - shrine of devotion, ritual offerings and contemplation. Bring what you want to release.
The Alsos - expansive soft chillout space; the sacred grove. Rest, intertwine, connect & flow.
The Ergasterion - adornment station, offering devotional markings by artist priestesses to please the gods.
The Stoa - bars everywhere serving their wines and hymns to our god Dionysus.
The Thiasos - the wandering company itself. That’s you. All of you. We give you our deepest gratitude. ♥
Dress Code: KINKY KORINTHANS
Greek (not Roman) glory awaits!
Merge nature & civilisation; creeper & weave, veil & vine, the wild and the tamed.
Fully express and reveal yourself, exposing arms, shoulders, backs and thighs. Drape the body’s erotic flanks with erogenous folds of fluttering fabric. Revisit and reimagine the sartorial histories of the Chiton, Chlamys, Peplos, Exomis and Himation (which later became the Roman toga).
Let the materials whisper over you like wind, loose and liberated. Let the fluidity be matched by gender fluidity, ambiguity, exploration of your many facets. The Ancient Greeks invented the bra (Strophion); re-invent how you offer your sacred landscapes.
Choose pure whites, sheers, creams & paler tones - offset only by the colours of grapes - green & wine red. Deploy simplicity & minimalism, with an abundance of expression and enjoyment.
Perhaps explore the enigmatic Dionysian mask - not ornate Venetian, but minimalist white classical…
Bedrape yourself with grapes and embrace the ancient call of natural materials - ivy & leaf, leather and jute. Enwrap your torso, crotch and limbs with rope & ties, cinches and corsets. Summon the horn and hoof & fur of the Satyr, & the wild abandon of the Maenad.
‘By the clustered grapes of Dionysus, I swear one day you will come to know the name of the Roaring One.’ (Euripides)
POSSIBLE ARCHETYPES TO INHABIT:
Dionysus - androgynous, ivy-crowned, grape-hung, beautiful and quietly terrifying
The Maenad - feral, ecstatic, wild-haired, fawn-skinned; ordinary woman become extraordinary force
The Satyr - half-man, half-goat; mischievous, musical, incorrigibly lustful and alive
The Bacchante - devotee in full ritual finery, thyrsus in hand, ready to run
The Priest/ess - theatrical, masked, ceremonial, moving between worlds
The Initiate - stripped back, suspended between selves, on the threshold of something irreversible
Be creative and inventive, not archival or historicist. Explore. Enjoy! <3
Please sail through our large & growing Pinterest board for lots of luscious inspiration…
GENERAL COSTUME GUIDANCE
Explore, augment, embellish - & shed ;) You don’t have to wear fetish or expose your flesh, though we all best revel in self expression; you do have to dress thoughtfully on theme.
Avoid slavish convention; add deviance & flair. Let go of gender stereotypes; allow fluid exchange between both masculine and feminine energy - & clothing.
Reinvent. Experiment. We love sexy, wild creativity. You are all artists..
We especially love stuff you carefully and lovingly made yourself. No major expenditure is needed. Consider attending our event-specific Costume Workshop, ~3 weeks before the event, which is also a great opportunity to meet other attendees. Anna Kii from Figure of A will be running a costume making workshop in early September where we create shibari harnesses.
The unparalleled Prangsta Costumiers in Deptford will be offering all our guests a generous 15% discount when you whisper “Dionysus”.
Please sign up to our socials for luscious updates and inspiration as we near the date or subscribe to our newsletter. Wanna join the team or get involved? Please let us know on our Get Involved page.
“The Apollonian and Dionysian, two great western principles, govern sexual personae in life and art. Dionysus is identification, Apollo objectification. Dionysus is the empathic, the sympathetic, emotion transporting us into other people, other palaces, other times. Apollo is the hard, cold separation of western personality and categorical thought. Dionysus is energy, ecstasy, hysteria, promiscuity, emotionalism -- heedless indiscriminateness of idea or practice. Apollo is obsessiveness, voyeurism, idolatry, fascism -- frigidity and aggression of the eye, petrification of objects. The quarrel between Apollo and Dionysus is the quarrel between the higher cortex and the older limbic and reptilian brains.’ (Camille Paglia)
KEY EVENT INFORMATION
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Unfortunately, we cannot offer refunds for any tickets. You can re-sell your ticket via our official resale platform for this event on Tixel or our Fox&Badge Ticket Exchange WhatsApp group
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Bring some cash for the cloak room, which is large & ample - but cash-only (apologies), £5/item. The bars accept card.
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We want to make our events as accessible as possible; to help us do this please email any questions and access requirements to foxandbadge@gmail.com or contact Studio 338 at (0)333 444 4338. We will be as accommodating as possible. If you purchase a ticket to one of our events and it is not possible for you to queue, please email us to arrange faster access in advance.If you notify the venue prior to your arrival, disabled parking spots can be arranged in the building’s car park. North Greenwich tube station offers step-free access from train to street and just over half a mile away from the club.
The club entrance is wheel-chair accessible.
The ground floor area of the club — which includes the main dance floor, main bar, garden and terrace bar — is fully accessible. The balcony area, however, which is up a flight of stairs, is not able to accommodate wheelchair-users.
If you have a carer, please email us at foxandbadge@gmail.com with documentation and we will issue them a free ticket to accompany you.There are disabled toilets on the ground floor.
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To ensure the best experience for all guests, we ask that you and your guest(s) read and agree to our Code & Culture (in particular, the centrality of consent) before buying your ticket: https://www.foxandbadge.com/house-rules
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This is a high-production, co-created arts & fetish ritual and event. It looks a little like a film set.
Together we can create magic & mystery; the banal & everyday are disruptive and unwelcome, and belong completely elsewhere.
We love sexy, wild creativity. We especially love stuff you carefully and lovingly made yourself.
You don’t have to wear fetish or expose your flesh; you do have to dress thoughtfully on theme.
Absolutely NO daywear, streetwear, businesswear, officewear, banal-wear, or anything off-theme will be allowed. Absolutely NO T-shirts, shirts, jackets, slacks, sneakers - or anything ordinary you’d just wear down the street.
Any dress-code queries, please contact us via foxandbadge+dresscode@gmail.com & we’ll do our best to respond.
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We celebrate expression over restriction, and take and share a modicum of photos and videos our nights. It is not practical or implementable for our crew to ask every guest in our many vast rooms for their explicit consent; please feel entitled to tell any photographers if you do not want to be filmed - or photographed or ask for a white wristband at the door which signifies you do not want to be photographed. Images of the night will be shared discreetly on our channels. We will of course instantly honour the request for removal or blurring of any photos you are not comfortable with; your privacy is paramount.
We kindly request our guests to leave their phones to the side as much as possible, not film the night, and simply be fully present; we will share all our beautiful professional photos & videos with our community immediately after the event. There are strictly no photos allowed in dungeons or sensual spaces. If in doubt, ask. Please only photograph with the utmost consideration, awareness and respect.
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We believe in equality & reciprocity. We do not want to generate revenue through divisive, separatist VIP elitism. We want to enable low-income guests to attend, but we also need help in return. Many of our family of volunteers are low-income, and generously give to our community in order to attend.
Our low-income tickets are offered to anyone who is working or occupied full-time, but on low-income; please email us at foxandbadge+lowincome@gmail.com with a brief overview of your circumstances.
Anyone who is unemployed but available, we vastly prefer to offer free tickets in exchange for help on e.g. setup during the day, derig after the event etc.
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We prioritise collective eros. While you won’t find playrooms at our events (typically due to venue licensing), we have many other opportunities for kink and sensual exploration - including our BDSM dungeon, tantra space, and guest shibari zone.
We welcome your descent into the shadows - and await you with loving fierceness ;)
No penetration or oral sex is allowed.
AFTERMOVIE FROM OUR RECENT EVENT
Courtly Love, February 2026
WORDS FROM OUR MOST RECENT EVENT
SHAKTI RISING, May 2025
Unbelievably great night. Like blow your mind great. Everything was delivered to perfection. Still experiencing the buzz now. Thank you all! I’ve no words that could befittingly describe how EPIC IT WAS. (Yael)
We entered into a world of magic, and were transported to what was ancient, real, sacred. It left us with more respect and longing to explore and give opportunity to both that culture, and all the female artists - and to awaken that voice within us. This event gave us all the chance to be lucid dreamers. You have to experience it to believe it.. (Matty C)
What a gift it has been to be part of such a special event as Shakti Rising. A special heartfelt thank you for creating such a beautiful, carefully curated and soulful space where art breathes freely; where body, culture and soul come together. A magik night. (Sile Gutrod)
To be involved in an event that honors the divine cosmic energy of Shakti, and to have had the platform to represent my culture in the most beautiful, authentic, and respectful way possible, means absolutely everything to me. I still can't believe how beautiful it was. All felt like a dream! Unforgettable. My heart is so full. (DJ ASHES)