Fox&Badge FLASHBACK #6: 2020/21
On 16th March 2020 the UK entered lockdown, and we postponed Pagan Spring, not knowing we wouldn’t be able to run it for 2 years.
Covid then changed the world forever. The shadow fell on nights out.
We couldn’t run events all year, so this post combines with the following year, when we finally re-congregated.
📿COVID CONVERSATIONS📿
I was in transition, grieving a life partnership & the architectural career I felt increasingly compelled to abandon. I began running, then hiking all over the UK, and finally discovered the Alps in summer, and the solace of silent mountains.
On 11th May 2021 my life changed forever when I met Lauren Katalinich, dancing in a forest. Lauren is now the driving force behind so much of Fox&Badge; Instagram, website, graphics and newsletters are entirely her brilliant handiwork, amongst so many other beautiful things.
One early day she drew a spirit animal card &, despite her clear feline identity, it was the Fox. We still joke about rebranding Fox&Badge to Kitty&Wolf.
I led a series of weekly online conversations, each time exploring a theme dear to the heart of Fox&Badge - anything from kink to community, costume to connection.
That summer I was in close contact with the owner of the Steel Yard, who was developing innovative trial events with the government. We developed a schematic event based around the Hero’s Journey, where a small group of lucky guests would get tested at the Mansion House, then embark on a series of quests through the alleys of the City to the Steel Yard, where they would proceed through a number of immersive environments.
🎭UN-MASQUERADE🎭
We prepped a Fox&Badge event for the moment lockdown relented, and a week after it lifted, we were welcoming guests to UNMASQUERADE - inviting our community to finally unmask.
Lauren and Mina, Anthony, Anissa and Nikita choreographed an elaborate unmasking ritual, and the crowd cheered and wept as they revealed their faces, and invited us all to do the same.
Our event was a bit slapdash; we were all so out of sorts and practice - but the atmosphere was electric, whooping til the end; it was such a release.
Mina hired a van to forage & transformed the entire middle arch into a cathedral of greenery. Performers spun on poles and hoops and smushed fruit joyously on their flesh.
🔥S I N🔥
Before lockdown struck again we hosted SIN, embracing the natural pleasures that Christianity denied us. We hosted our 1st aerial performances, and several wild dance troupes. Dan conjured a huge pageant with performers representing each of the 7 deadly sins in our cathedral, whilst immersives explored each of them upstairs.
We built 3 permanently manned Confession booths at the rear of the large dancefloor. Syban skewered herself, and Sofia drenched herself in cream, gloriously flooding the City Bar. A brilliant guest came dressed just in money. Gregory led a welcoming ritual, and a few days later Jane ran our Integration dance in the woods, before we gathered around the fire and cuddled into the night.
Omicron threatened our ability to run an event in an utterly unique location - the haunting old abandoned 5-storey eyeglass-fabricating warehouse of Algha Works, which suggested the idea of “Into the Light” for our first collective New Year’s Eve in a while. I was crazily excited to create a labyrinth of wild new environments - we even had a whole floor dedicated to an epic afterparty - but the venue manager didn’t finish the soundproofing construction in time for us to get a license & we had to 1st postpone, and then cancel; this time we were hobbled by a human, not a virus.
A friend kindly offered to host a small replacement New Year’s Eve event. We all wore white, & swirled at midnight. Mina made paper aeroplanes & we wrote our wishes inside, & sent them aloft into the future.
This New Year’s Eve we revisit that threshold of collective intentionality, this time with much greater sacrament, focus and panache. We’re incredibly excited to work in a much more intimate setting and feel a sense of community as we enter 2026 in connection and unison - honouring one of our few remaining cultural rituals in the UK.
There’s now only just over a week left on penultimate tickets; please join us…
