Parade of Horribles, the brainchild of Mish Weaver and an Unlimited and Artsadmin co-commission, is an ambitious performance project inspired by a US tradition of parading scary things down the high street to reduce their power.
Parade of Horribles is a roaming devised work, combining performance, spoken word and projection to celebrate differences with empathetic humour and amplify consciousness around the psychological effects of Climate Crisis. Going from City to Town, spending time with community groups in each area to better understand their lived experience, their fears and desires to translate into imagery for the street. Audiences will happen upon, share, and remember images designed to start conversations. Parade finds ways to create empathy between people and rejoice in the vibrancy that difference brings to our lives.
Participants will engage in community tailored creative activities and discussions, during engagement weeks and attend showings during the devising of the Horribles.
Audiences will engage with happenings on the streets, visual spectacles and curious micro-narratives in spaced-apart sites, incorporating circus, mobile sculptures and projection onto walls/mobile screens, accessible via multiple viewpoints.
Social engagement is at the heart of Parade of Horribles and drives the project and its mission. Working with local communities in each town and city we visit, the project begins with introducing itself to a community via arts activities and then starting conversations on what frustrates us and what keeps us up at night. By talking about and exposing these things we reduce their power and find the many commonalities we share. The aim of Parade of Horribles is to create joy and empathy in that which frightens us and consider as a result of new understanding how best we might act towards each other and ourselves for a better future.
Parade of Horribles is commissioned and supported by Unlimited, celebrating the work of disabled artists, with funding from Artsadmin, Arts Council England and ACT, through the Creative Europe programme of the European Union. Produced by Artsadmin.
