Fox&Badge FLASHBACK #5: 2019
2019 was a monumental year of success & failure, joy & heartbreak.
📿RELIGION📿
RELIGION felt like a real step up; a rich, complex feast, full of both cohesion and diversity.
We hung one (female) christ upside down in shibari suspension; crucified and wax-poured another, whilst Virgin Extravaganzah sang with joy. We had lots of singers; a stunning choir accompanied Sinead & Monika whilst they danced to “Like a Prayer”, and the crowd went wild.
Nuns galore were baptised and whipped and everywhere joyous.
Lawr crafted some giant pagan animal stiltwalkers; F&B paganism was born at Religion, which hosted all kinds of mystical figures and rituals..
It was a truly international smorgasbord of music, headlined by Miss Melera, who flew in from Amsterdam alongside DANSOR; Alicia from New York, Onquiet from Germany and Ogi from Denmark. A pagan choir roved the venue, harmoniums and drummers greeted guests with fire on entry, Anna sang & ceremonially sawed her cello, and we held a live music chill area on the tiny balcony. We hired our 1st stage manager, Larisa, who also flew in from New York.
We built an epic set - a vast edifice of 18mm plywood, 20 foot tall - so tall it hit the lights on the top arch & had to be cut back (on the lonely derig I was up a ladder, kicking a stubborn panel loose when the ladder fell away and found myself clinging to the ceiling truss - and only just managed to swing myself to safety, dropping into the balcony lighting booth). The lower part was arcades to backstage and the DJ booth, whilst the organ slots above concealed the equally-epic lasers. We event built a whole other similar construction on a huge new raised stage at the back. I was slow to learn the difference between generosity - and extravagance.
Religion divides as well as unites. After the event some guests were demonised for cultural appropriation & we experienced our first online attack by trolls who didn’t dare to meet or speak. It was painful - even traumatic - but we grew, and also perhaps retracted a little. Offering events is such a delicate balance between sensitivity and resolve.
🌵DUSTY ANGELS🌵
I’d embarked on a challenging project to build a huge, complex amphitheatre (PlayaScape) at Burning Man and host events on it. I soon found I had to spend most of my time just raising the money to build it, and we ran a large fundraiser event at the Village Underground, DUSTY ANGELS. Everyone generously donated their time and brought great gifts.
The Scumfrog flew in to headline; Stefan flew in from Vienna with trunkloads of lights for creating a lighting-sculpture DJ booth; Jon created his 1st of several phototheatre sets; and the epic afterparty lasted though the night. The ecstatic energy between the DJs, drummers, and Elena and the dancers on stage was out of this world.
The project and build did not go well and caused a lot of heartache. Sinead left our relationship, and I thought that was it for Fox&Badge, but she wanted to continue to run events together, and we did.
🍾THE BEAUTIFUL & DAMNED🍾
THE BEAUTIFUL & DAMNED was similarly huge, and elegant, peppered with more types of music; Hollin played piano in the lounge bar, Sarah Tilley & Dan Chorlton violin, and Charlie his magical theremin, whilst Sinead even sang “Mein Herr” to her dramatic troupe dance piece, whose farewell lyrics felt brutally poignant.
At one point the smoke machines triggered the smoke alarms, which cut the music; Jembe Jonty didn’t miss a beat, and heroically stepped up and powered on with his wild drumming, and everyone writhed with joy, thinking this was a planned performance.
DJ BlancaH flew in from Brazil to headline, and wowed us not only with her set (singing on her 20s vintage mic), but her loving appreciation. LORRAINE and Tizy flew in from Spain, juSt b from Canada, and Tripswitch headlined the more intimate dancefloor.
We built another huge series of sets in the largest arch, plastered in modernist art deco imagery, and began to learn how to dramatically backlight the fans and feathers of our performers - burlesque luminaries like Betsy Rose, Tallulah Blue and Topanga Love.
The Pomba Girls stormed the dancefloor as topless suffragettes, demanding equality. Tatiana taught our guests life drawing above as Antonia writhed in charcoal below, her body as paintbrush, marking out its anguish, whilst Xenia frenzied on the floor; we were learning to be feral…
This was our 1st foray into the twenties, which we’ll now revisit this New Year’s Eve for BRIGHT PRECIOUS THINGS - exploring, quite differently, and more intimately (it’s also our 10th birthday) the way the joyous revolutionary spirit of the Jazz & Machine Age can inspire us to transformation as we journey onwards & upwards into twenty twenty-six.
This New Year’s Eve is going to be such a unique event for us; a cuddly culmination of all we’ve learned and loved, and all that we’re prepared to let go of for the glorious journey ahead. Here’s to growth over decadence, & the thrilling purpose of a new decade.
Please join us - there’s just a little over 2 weeks to go on penultimate tickets:
