This is the third part of a 3-part series of blogs, charting my journey through the Glitter Heart performance lab, lovingly held by Liz Clarke and Company and funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund, summer 2025. 

To get some context, start with the first blog: Glitter Heart #1: Live Art + Collaboration, then have a look at Glitter Heart #2: Who is this performer?

This blog follows my progress through the second and final weekend of the Glitter Heart lab. It contains:

• A catch up of what happened since the last weekend

• Three important conversations that shaped my final piece

• Notes from a largely unwitnessed extended improvisation, exploring what happens when I drop the words and express grief through my body (I got stuck in an infinite loop of suffering)

• My descent into the Shame Hole - exploring what led up to this.

• Preparation and notes from my final performance - playing from the Shame Hole.

• Afterthoughts - thoughts on grief, shame, trauma, my parts and how they’ve tried to look after me over the years, healing through creativity.

• My takeaways from the whole project - what happened, what difference it made and what I’m going to take forward.

The photos throughout this blog are by Vonalina Cake Photography.

***TRIGGER WARNING: THIS BLOG CONTAINS REFERENCES TO BABY LOSS, DESPAIR, SHAME, SUICIDAL FEELINGS AND A LOT OF SWEARING.***

What happened in the gap?

During the two week gap between the two weekends, I co-facilitated the Deep Play Retreat in Embercombe with Collaborative Vocal Improvisation legend, Briony Greenhill. This gave me a whole bunch of fresh new Collaborative Vocal Improvisation structures and a wild / free voice to play with.

I’d also spent a week at Bee Golding’s writing retreat in Bristol, where I had written this blog about the power of ritual in change-making. So, ritual and voice were very much in my body, heart and mind…

Saturday

We had all invited a few friends to come on the Sunday afternoon and witness some of what we’d been up to in the Glitter Heart lab, so we had a day and half to make something to show them!

After a warm-up and a check-in, we were invited to make offers and requests to each other for support. I offered facilitation / outside eye and requested conversations around my creative practice.

A Walk and Talk with Emily

One of the official facilitators, Emily, and I went for a walk along the river. Emily asked brilliant questions to help me delve into my creative practice and figure out what I might want to show on Sunday afternoon. Here’s some of the things that came out of our conversation…

I was a performer for over two decades, I started performing aged 6 in my family’s circus and went on to be a clown-musician, performing in circuses, streets, theatres, schools and festivals until the age of 30, when I stopped to pursue a more stable life.

These days I feel much more comfortable as a facilitator. In fact I see facilitation as my main creative practice. My Inner Critic prefers me to facilitate, rather than perform. He finds most performance art extremely wanky and self-indulgent, whereas he sees facilitation as an act of service and that is OK.

My facilitation practice is supported by my superpowers of being able to read a room and anticipate everyone’s needs. These superpowers (aka hypervigillence) were developed through a somewhat chaotic and unpredictable childhood! These superpowers also served me very welI as a Clown; I could feel or sense what audiences were wanting and I was able to shape the material to meet them, moment to moment. 

Emily was interested to find out what sort of performance I would make if I wasn’t primarily focussed on trying to satisfy the audience’s needs… 

What a mind blowing concept!

A Chat With Kamina

Dance artist Kamina and I had a chat about the vulnerability of letting go of words in performance. Kamina had watched my previous hour-long improvisation and she wondered, “Who is Patricia without her words?”

I imagined Patrica on stage, not talking, and she seemed lost and vulnerable. I realised words give her power and control - her academic expertise, confidence and fluency are how she keeps me safe. 

I imagined Patricia at home alone in a tidy house with lots of neatly arranged books. I think she wears neutral coloured cardigans and skirts 24 hours a day. I can’t imagine her wearing anything else. Her food is simple and wholesome and she eats modest portions. She has a few healthy house plants and maybe a non-demanding cat. She doesn’t have a husband or kids. I wonder if she has a surprisingly outrageous hobby? Something filthy or decadent? 

It was interesting to take Patricia out of her role with audiences and think of her life outside of all the amazing ways she serves me.

A Movement Score From Amy

After another chat about how to let go of the words on stage, performer / director / maker, Amy, gave me a score to help me explore the physicality of each of my parts more deeply:

1.) Find an anchoring rhythm (maybe breath) and identify the physical centre of the character.

2.) Find a travelling mode, how do they move?

3.) Find an in-place dance / movement / game.

Improvisation #3 Letting Go Of Words: Exploring Physicality 

I returned to my cosy little performance space all alone this time. I wanted to see if I could hold myself through this investigation without an external witness. I was also interested to see if removing the audience / witness would help my critic relax enough to let me drop in deeper into an embodied exploration of grief. 

I set up the audience chairs and put the Friend name label (from the previous hour-long improvisation) in the audience. I set out the other parts in the same positions as last time.  After warming up, I started deepening into the physicality of each part:

Patricia has a tight bum and a furrowed brow and takes up as little space as possible.

I Want To Do / Be Good is led by her outstretched arms - she wants to give and give and give and give. She’s quick and energetic and a bit desperate. Her breathing is shallow.

The Childless Mother is hollow in the middle, with a sense of being pulled backwards by the spine whilst searching out front for her lost children - she moves slowly like an underwater nightmare.

Despair / Gaza / The World Is Burning is collapsed on the floor, heavy, hopeless.

Mary is led by the heart, full of compassion and care, she moves lightly and slowly, gliding.

The Critic was mostly disengaged and bored, flopping about on the arm chair and sighing loudly. 

The Clown wanted to wear the black nose instead of the red one this time. Wrapped in the knitted blankie, she soothed herself by holding herself tight and rocking.

The Childless Mother found a flow of repetitive choreography where she held a baby with joy, then looking up for a moment to share her joy, the baby began to disintegrate and when she looked back, she saw just her bare hands. In slow motion, she searched for her lost baby.

As I connected deeper with my personal grief, the Global Grief began to engulf me, pinning me down to the ground with despair.

I Want To Do / Be Good rescued me from hopelessness, by finding a thousand ways to give to the world.

The Childless Mother and Global Grief and I Want To Do / Be Good got stuck in this perpetual triangle for quite a long time.

Patricia and The Critic were redundant without their words. They couldn’t interrupt the cycle, so I just continued, going deeper and deeper and deeper into the grief, despair and desperation.

There was a sudden unexpected appearance from Why Don’t You Just Die? He’s one of the heavyweight protectors in my system who shows up when I am feeling really vulnerable. He appeared on the back right of the stage and took the form of a huge, bent over vampire, standing on a chair, towering over all the other parts.

My sweet Clown fell back into her old patterns, trying to fight off the doom and bring us into the present moment, by doing impressions of the plants and the plasticine figures on the windowsill. 

The Clown found a paper boat and she brought it to the Childless Mother, who accepted the gift with delight and was able to find a small moment of peace, cradling the fragile paper boat, with tears rolling down her face.

I Fell In A Shame Hole

As you can probably sense from the description, this was a Very Deep Session. I have no idea how long it was. It may have been an hour or two. It felt like days. 

It seemed much more possible to embody my grieving parts when there was no audience / witness. I was really able to access the full emotional realms of each of those parts. But I got stuck. 

It was interesting to experience my super-critic, Why Don’t You Just Die?, turning up to rescue me, just at the point when the pain was becoming intolerable. I’ve known this part since my teens and these days I am not afraid of it. I am able to hear its suggestions and thank it for trying to take care of me before letting it know that I don’t need that kind of help. But its appearance let me know that I’d touched something very deep and raw in my improvisation. 

I was grateful for a little visit from Von the photographer and later Amy, who popped in towards the end to witness and support the final stages of my investigation. Their presence helped me find my way back to the here and now.

This session happened at the very end of Saturday and my parts were still really activated as I cycled home. I found myself thinking about what I might want to show on the Sunday. The material I’d been playing with felt too raw to show to an audience. But I wanted to take the opportunity to perform something, so what could I do that would feel safe enough? 

Earlier that day, I had offered to support one of the other artists during their performance and I started wondering whether I could do that in character… Maybe I could take elements of I Want To Do / Be Good and create a costumed character, killing two birds with one stone? 

When I got home, I rummaged through my costume bags and put together a low-status, helpful clown costume and sent a pic to the artist who I was meant to be supporting, asking “What do you think about this?”

The artist did not like my idea, which at another time would have been totally fine, but because of how activated I was from the day's work, I got triggered into a big rejection story, which resulted in me falling into a massive shame hole for 24 hours.

I felt like a total twat, like I’d totally screwed it up, like my offer was ridiculous and disrespectful of her work, like I was a terrible artist and a terrible person... After a long dark night of the soul, where my parts had a field day remembering all the times I’ve fucked up in my life, I chose to stay at home on the Sunday morning and take care of myself.

Sunday 

As I lay in the bath with tears streaming down my face, a thought popped in, “This shame ain’t going nowhere! Maybe I need to play with it!” So that’s what I did. I let my shame sing through me in the bath, a deep soulful blues. I asked my shame what she wanted to wear and she chose my stylish black funeral dress and a black pillbox hat with a veil, she wanted my hair loose and proper lady make-up on (I never wear my hair down and I haven’t worn make-up for years!).

Preparing For The Performance

When I arrived at the rehearsal space, everyone was busy with their various processes, so I skulked about looking for a possible performance site. I found an outdoor spot with a big craggy backdrop and started warming up in it. I stretched and shook my body before  exploring the site for potential play opportunities. I cleansed the space with burning sage, inviting in the qualities that I wanted to have in my improvised performance: (enough) safety, support, ritual, voice, body, movement, freedom, truth.

The audience were led around, visiting each artists’ performance spaces to get a glimpse of what we’d been up to in the Glitter Heart lab: one artist in a dress made of bin bags invited the audience to throw eggs at her, another artist talked about her process of creating a paper theatre with grief as her consultant, another one talked about her process of creating three short performance poetry films and then it was my turn…

Improvisation #4: My Final Performance: Playing With Shame

The following description is taken from footage of the performance.

I had the urge to crawl under a table which was laden with all the art materials. As the audience began to gather round, I whispered from under the table, “I am in a shame hole.” I beckoned them closer, before whispering: “I’m wondering what it would be like to just play from the shame hole…” 

I explained that I’d been in the shame hole since 7 o’clock the previous evening, “It’s quite lonely in the shame hole and it’s not a lot of fun.”

I had my pile of parts name-labels under the table with me and I introduced the audience to the cast of inner characters that I had been working with throughout this project, holding up their names as I described them.

I ripped up the name labels after I’d introduced each part and when I got to I Want To Be / Do Good, I paused and felt a wave of emotion. Tears rolled down my face as I sat looking at the piece of paper.

I picked up the Friend label and offered it to the audience, inviting them to pass it around. The audience members gave it a little hug or a kiss as it traveled around the room. While they were doing this, I explained, “I’m going to need some friends for the next bit. I’d like to sing and I’d like some help. I’d like you all to light a candle and bring it outside with me in a minute.”

“I’d like to noodle about [with my voice] until I find something that’s satisfying, then I want to give it to you to sing and I want you to keep singing… and I’m going to try to sing the shame and see what happens.”

The audience trickled outside, holding candles. I took my time to noodle about and find a minor waltz bass line for half the audience to sing. Once they got it, I noodled about again until I found a complimentary phrase for the other half of the audience to sing. 

I began noodling over the top, gradually allowing more and more of my voice out. Turning up the volume, I started playing with different sounds: “Hey yay” turned to “Ha ho, ha ho,” as I beat out a rhythm on my chest.

I offered my voice to the trees, to the sky and to the earth as my sounds morphed into Creature Language (aka gobbledy gook). Dropping deeper into my shame, my voice began to howl and keen.

Suddenly, I was able to sing in English.

“I’m gonna purge this fucker out!

Purge it out!

Purge this fucker out!

Purge it out!”

Purge it out!”

I started jumping up and down as I shouted:

“I’ve had enough

Of this toxic fucking sludge”

I sang:

“Oooooooh, fuck you!

You fucking fucker!”

I howled a lament from the bottom of my belly:

“Oh shame!

Oh shame!

Oh shame!”

Softer now, I continued to sing:

“I know you’re trying to help

I know you’re trying to keep me safe

I know you’re trying to help

I know you’re trying to keep me safe

BUT I DON’T NEED THAT SHIT!!!

I don’t need that shit.”

Something shifted and I softened. Hands together in prayer I sang:

“Thank you.

Thank you shame.

For all the times you’ve tried to keep me safe,

Thank you shame.”

Tears rolled as my voice cracked. 

Walking the circle, I felt the support of the audience - friends, peers and friends of friends. As I dropped into gratitude, I felt the shame begin to evaporate. I asked the audience to sing up as belted out my finale:

“It’s coming out my armpits!

It’s coming out my vagina!

It’s coming out my mouth!

It can fuck off!

It can fuck off!

Go help somebody else!

Cos I don’t need this shit!

I don’t fucking need this shit!

I’m only fucking playing!”

I walked around the circle one last time, silently thanking each audience member, before exiting the circle with a running leap. 

After my performance, feeling naked and raw, I wrapped myself up in several layers, put on a big floppy hat and sunglasses and watched the final artist perform a site-specific piece which led the audience down to the river to release their wishes and desires. I wished for peace.

Commentary

It was really strange looking back at the video, several weeks after the performance. I had very little memory of what I’d done - either due to the trance-like depth of the performance or perhaps my parts took me out and made me dissociate to escape the pain…

Looking back now, I think that performance was the only thing I could have done. I was so blended with Shame that I didn’t have much access to my other parts. I guess I could have stayed at home, but the Opportunist in me encouraged me to take a bold risk.

I presented as a single costumed character / part. At the time I thought I was embodying Shame, but looking back at the footage, I realise it was actually the Grieving Mother (the one who carries the shame of childloss/childlessness). 

Despite my desire to stick to one character, I saw glimmers of Patrica, The Clown and The Critic in the beginning section, when I was under the table. I love that they managed to crack through the shame to support me, bless them!

Looking back at the section when I was singing outside, I actually saw a lot of Fuckknuckle, a character I used to play in my late 20’s - the front woman of the punk-clown-show-band, Fuckknuckle and The Bastards. 

Fuckknuckle was born / created / unleashed from my unconscious as a way of dealing with my intense stage fright and my off-the-scale harsh Super Critic. Back in those days, Fuckknuckle helped me deal with the terror of being judged by audiences by becoming bigger, louder, riskier and wilder with every performance. 

Standing on the stage in her underwear, hair backcombed and with mascara and lipstick all over her face, Fuckknuckle screamed Britney Spears songs through a megaphone in a strange Russian / Spanish accent, whilst maintaining direct eye contact with the most terrified looking members of the audience. Ah those were the days!

It’s not surprising that Fuckknuckle made an appearance during my Glitter Heart performance, with the conditions being as they were... 

Saturday’s conversations and experiments triggered a lot of fear in my system. The encouragement to make a piece of art just for me, as opposed to creating something for an audience, had my Hypervigilant / People-Pleasing parts in panic. 

The encouragement to lose the words and drop deeper into the body, took away the power of my very loyal and useful collaborators, my Inner Academic and my Inner Critic. Doing this had enabled me to reach my grieving parts, but without my trusted protectors, I was very easy prey to Why Don’t You Just Die?

Why Don’t You Just Die?, is the gatekeeper of the shame hole. He is incredibly effective at getting me alone and isolated, where I am as safe as I can possibly be (you can’t get much safer than dead).

With my system in total panic, I want to be / do good and The Clown sprang to my aid, trying to get me into relationship with another artist, as their supporter, but when that artist turned me down, I was plunged into the old familiar shame hole.

The shame hole is a dark and lonely place. I spent the whole of my 20’s trying to fight my way out of it. I was a prolific performer, but no matter what I did, I was never good enough for my super critic and I would end up in the shame hole again and again. Back then I didn’t have a lot of internal stability, I was very fragile and susceptible to those loud shaming voices in my system. This was the main reason why I decided to stop performing and retrain as a dramatherapist, aged 30.

I’ve spent the intervening years undergoing a fuck-tonne of therapy, developing a regular meditation practice and getting to know my parts in creative and embodied ways. These days I have lots more awareness, a bunch of tried and tested coping mechanisms and swathes of experience of surviving shame storms.

I have a lot of compassion and affection for my Super Critic, he was only ever trying to help and I have endless gratitude for Fuckknuckle. She dug me out of the shame hole so many times, she got me heard and seen and she kept me in community. I’m glad she showed up to support me at the Glitter Heart show.

Was The Shame Released?

Let’s look at my various attempts to release the shame during the performance:

1.) Recruiting the audience’s help

2.) Finding my voice

3.) Exploring sounds that might release shame

4.) Bringing in the body and exploring gestures that might release shame

5.) Asking the audience to increase their support

6.) Voicing anger

7.) Voicing grief

8.) Asserting boundaries

9.) Gratitude 

10.) Release

They all feel like important stages in developing a different relationship with shame. I did feel the shame physically lift during the performance. It didn’t totally disperse and it came back with a vengeance over the next few days, but I was able to meet it with compassion and care. 

Viewing this ritual now as the Grieving Mother trying to release her shame around childloss / childlessness makes total sense. My decision to move back to Bristol, afterbeing on the run for several years, came from the desire to plug back into my support network, so that I can finally face and heal the trauma underpinning my grief. I realise now that there was a layer of shame that was sitting on top of my grief and trauma, which was scuppering my healing process. This ritual felt like a hugely significant breakthrough. 

I put my raw grief, my precious vulnerability and my toxic shame on stage. I put my needs first, I asked for the audience's support and I took my space. Using ritual, song and movement, I engaged my voice and my body and something huge shifted in me. 

Was it theatre? I’m not sure it even matters. It was what it needed to be.

Key Take Aways

This is from notes I made during our reflection session at the end of the final weekend.

What happened for you?

I got to be an equal member of a peer group! I was not in charge! I was one of many inspiring, amazing, older female and nonbinary artists, making incredible, meaningful, process-driven work. I got to practice asking for and receiving support, as well as supporting others.

I got to discover the Live Art Archives and feel a sense of belonging to a lineage of bat shit crazy, powerful female performers. (We will create a book, a film and a selection of artifacts documenting our process to give back to the archive. Super cool, eh?)

I got to explore the theme of collaboration, release some old ideas / limitations / beliefs that I’ve been lugging around and update my sense of what collaboration could look like.

I got to revisit an old, discarded parts-based, semi-improvised, performance-lecture format and I got to see how my more recently discovered parts play in that space.

I explored the link between my grief, the grief of the world, my sad clown and my desperate desire to contribute / save the world! 

I explored what happens when I drop the words and express through my body and my voice.

I fell in a shame hole and I stayed creatively engaged.

What difference has it made for you?

I stepped back into being a performer, after a biiiiiiiiiiig break. I wouldn’t have dared to do this without this support.

I was inspired by this organic, unfolding model of collaboration which saw six artists simultaneously working on their own material, whilst supporting each other and being supported by a team of kind and capable wonderbeings.

I feel like I’ve landed back in Bristol. It was so good to feel part of a creative gang again and what a gang we were! There were moments when I looked around with such affection and pride, as everyone was engrossed in their creative work. 

I learned loads about the kind of support I need now, if I want to continue to perform. Because of the subject matter that I am choosing to play with and the depth that I am diving to, the container is really important! It feels like this material needs a carefully curated well-held space with dedicated witnessing / external support and lots more time. I feel like I can ask for that now.

What are you going to take forward? 

I’d like to keep these precious connections made and rekindled through the Glitter Heart project, finding ways to continue to support each other as artists and humans.

I have a desire to keep exploring the semi-improvised parts-based performance-lecture format, definitely in performance labs like this, but maybe even on public stages too… (stop press - after the second weekend, I applied to do an hour long PERFORMANCE LECTURE at a conference and GOT ACCEPTED! Watch this space for details…)

I’d like to keep exploring body and voice, in safely held spaces (I have another co-created fools lab coming up soon, where I can do that and I have plans to manifest more of these performance labs in 2026).

I’d like to continue to explore the themes of childloss, childlessness and grief through my body, with the right support in place. I’m not fixed on putting this stuff on public stages, but embodied parts work with expert compassionate witnessing feels like a very potent way of processing. I’d love to do this work with other people who are childless (stop press - I recently took the opportunity to present a talk + a workshop at World Childless Week. I did a little bit of (carefully considered) embodied parts work as part of my personal storytelling, which seemed to land well! You can see that here).

This process really fed my facilitator, I have already noticed new insights, skills and compassion when facilitating others. 

Writing these blogs has helped me find the treasure from this process and I hope some of it is useful to you, dear reader.

With deep gratitude to Liz Clarke and all the wonderful people who were involved with this project.

Glitter Heart #1: Live Art + Collaboration

Glitter Heart #2: Who Is This Performer?

Find out more about Liz Clarke and company

Find out more about Vonalina Cake Photography