Emergency 25

→ artists · afternoon · evening · entry · access · about · credits  Updated 26 September 2025

Presented by Word of Warning + Contact

Emergency 25 is a day out for the curious at Contact on Saturday 27 September. Read Evening Programme Notes below and see some of our artists’ images.

Content Warnings: please click here.

Action Hero · A Western

A Western was first performed at Emergency in 2005 — it was the first performance Action Hero ever did and the tiny DIY show went on to be performed over 100 times all over the world, travelling to Rio De Janeiro, Bangkok, Tasmania, Madrid, Vienna, Texas, San Francisco, Vancouver, Brisbane, and many more. Last performed in 2016, this 30-minute version is being re-staged at Emergency 25 to celebrate Action Hero’s 20 year anniversary.

Gemma Paintin & James Stenhouse work under the moniker Action Hero. Together, they create artworks that explore what is it to be human now. James & Gemma’s long-form, shape-shifting collaboration spans performance, installation, sound, events, and social practice. Since 2005, the work Action Hero has created has toured to more than 40 countries across 5 continents; from the smallest DIY and artist-led spaces to some of the world’s most prestigious art institutions, galleries, festivals.

actionhero.org.uk · Insta @actionherolive

Burt Turdgirth & special guests

A surreal journey into the underworld with drag king, anti-hero, and torch singer Burt Turdgirth, and his dog guides. Burt confronts his deepest fears and exposes his inner emotional life as an act of public service. His broken heart is the antidote to toxic masculinity. His mediocrity is your mediocrity; his shame is your shame. And you guessed it, his midlife crisis belongs to you. Please enjoy!

Whisper to Black by Richard DeDomenici. Guest starring Martin Shead & William Lang, originally devised with Myshak Salansky.

Burt is a torch singer and an epic fantasist. A Liverpool local phenomena, Burt has been seen at the Everyman Bistro, Quarry, Unity Theatre, on the runway at House of Suarez, at a kundalini retreat in Stolzenhagen (Germany), and a wedding in Rostanga (Sweden).

Please note: raw meat is used during the performance; out of respect for the animals, the meat is ethically sourced and will be consumed afterwards.

mpearsonater.com/burtturdgirth · Insta @burtturdgirth

Kellie Colbert & Deborah Newton · The Party We Didn’t Plan

A playful exploration of life’s messy, unplanned moments and milestones through the lens of a party gone awry. Two performers invite the audience into a fun but awkward celebration filled with confetti and confessions. Blending humour and vulnerability, this piece captures the experience of navigating unexpected loss, unmet expectations, and quiet resilience. Through play, partying, and friendship it celebrates survival over perfection, offering a bittersweet reflection on what it means to keep showing up when life doesn’t go to plan.

Kellie is a Greater Manchester-based performance maker. She would describe herself as an autobiographical artist, who creates work that is honest, relatable, and at times self-critical. She has collaborated with Eggs Collective, and has been commissioned by NIAMOS, Breakdown Bolton, Factory International, and most recently on her hÅb-commissioned solo: Dedicated To The One I Love which debuted at Contact in March.

Deborah is the programme leader for BA (Hons) Theatre and Performance at The Arden School of Theatre. She is also a performance practitioner and facilitator specialising in contemporary performance with a strong commitment to making the arts accessible to all. Her work is often autobiographical, exploring themes of relationships, identity, and mental health.

Insta @kellie.colbert.theatre & @deborahnewtonartist

n:u (melissandre varin) · le monstre de mon papa

With le monstre de mon papa the monstrous reproduction of violence that happens in supremacist systems is subtly brought into question. Here white lilies, milk, shea butter, images, and the artist’s body invite attention to passed down violence. It is about imperial, monarchal, and patriarchal intimacies and their offshoots. Flirting with their inner inherited monster, n:u morphs into the haunting figure, the ghost of their father — that they are.

n:u is an atmosphere-maker based in Birmingham. Working as an atmosphere-maker emerges from their Congolese sapeur heritage, and their practice as an environmental artist. They develop an ecologically care-full practice of receptivity, encounter, reciprocity, and transformation — creating performances, installations, sculptures, and liberatory infrastructures. Their practice invites different ways to be with change by blurring colonial lines between designers and participants, and making unexpected pairings between materials and concepts.

atmosphere-maker.org · Insta @nu.melissandre.varin

Riley Hamshaw-Mills · Rollo

When I was young, I hoped to join the magic circle, but my struggles to keep faith in my own ability got in the way. This quick fire medley attempts to rekindle a previous version of myself, ‘magically’ appearing in front of my eyes and the audience’s: 1-4 cm of levitation (across multiple areas of the stage), a card trick of all my ages, sounds of transferable knowledge from my brain to the audience. A blend of physical movement, personal manifestos and audience interaction.

Riley is a Lowestoft-based working-class artist involved in producing experimental work from all different aspects of performance, including Live Art, immersive/site specific & autobiographical theatre. His work looks to blend the mundane aspects of living with surreal ideas & feelings, with satire & small town working-class attitudes being a through point in a lot of his work.

Insta @rileyjhm

† change of programme — due to injury, Alexis Maxwell is no longer able to perform.

Tom Cassani · Oraculum

A divine announcement. A prophetic declaration. A reflective gathering. A reassembled mind reading act.

Thanks to South House Faversham, Augusto Corrieri, Tim Bromage, Ocean Stefan, Thomas Wood, Lara Clifton, Screaming Alley, and Nik Taylor.

Tom is a UK-based performance maker working with choreography, magic, and live art. His performances draw on an expanded approach to magic examining the nature of deception and truth. Tom’s illusory texts, imagery, and physicality reveal the mechanics of trickery — ensuring we stay aware of our own role in experiencing something that is often not real.

Insta @tomcassani

Elana Binysh · I think it was a feeling

A performance experiment about self voyeurism, shame, and sensation. It’s also about pissing yourself: what it feels like when you can’t control it, and when you can. Elana will instruct you until you’re hyper aware of your body and bodies around you. You’ll be taught how to rub your fingers together, swallow, and hide a wet patch. Set to a pulsing electronic soundtrack, I think it was a feeling is brash, noisy, and tender. It asks you to let go of control — because maybe pissing yourself actually feels good.

Lead Artist: Elana Binysh · Sound Design: Naycha Somko · Producer: Catherine Hoffmann · Support: Ged Boden
Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

Elana is a live artist working across sound and performance. She creates sensory environments for audiences to give themselves over to and be swallowed up by. She likes to think about transgression, shame, and grossness.

elanabinysh.co.uk · Insta @elanabinysh

INTERVAL

Mole Wetherell & UoS Performance · Am i right, am I wrong?

If all of your friends jumped off a cliff, would you jump too? In the beginning there was nothing. We copied, we divided, we multiplied and copied again until we ended up here. In our beginning there was a song, although from another time it made a different sense than what it did then. We listened to that same song over 100 times until it stopped making sense.

A new performance project created by a group of UoS students collectively called Large Blue Automobile, together with Mole Wetherell.

Mole is artistic director of Reckless Sleepers, an international company that has presented theatre performances for over 30 years.

reckless-sleepers.eu · Insta @recklesssleepers

Nathan Birkinshaw · no one asked for this

In a world of AI copies and IP rehashes, nostalgia for a forgotten past, and a copy and pasted blurb, Nathan Birkinshaw — artist, film maker, raconteur — is now sober, domesticated, and lives with two cats.

Nathan is a comedian, writer, and artist from Wakefield, known for a unique blend of humour and theatricality. With over fifteen years of making theatre, he has created a few semi-successful shows such as the Works Ahead 2015 commission How I Lost The Will To Live (& Why You Should Too). His works have toured nationally but now he spends most of his time making sandwiches and tending to his two cats.

nathanbirkinshaw.co.uk · Insta @nathanbirkinshaw

Rachael Gooch · Mother Nature

Compared with Mother Nature, we are insignificant. We are a single grain of sand on a vast beach. The world was turning before we were born and continues to turn long after we are dead. Mother Nature doesn’t need us, but we need her. She generously sustains our existence but don’t take for granted her brutality. Exploring motherhood, nature, and the strength, sacrifices and acts of servitude of women. How does the term Mother Nature reflect gender roles and societal expectations? How do our own life experiences shape our view on mothers? How do you know if you want to be a mother?

Rachael is a North West-based contemporary artist and theatre maker. She makes physical performances including solo and durational pieces, and has performed at Word of Warning’s Social Experiment. Her work explores human behaviour, voyeurism, parent/child dynamics, physical and vocal endurance, environment, and natural cycles.

Insta @rach.elliot · Facebook /Rachael Gooch

Rosie Hart & Poppy Waxman · You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk

milk milk milk milk milk milk milk milk milk milk milk llaeth milk milk milk milk milk milk milk milk. PERfect. A twenty-minute sensual, silly, suspenseful, (mostly) silent soak — with milk.

Rosie is a Welsh artist, theatre-maker, and writer who aims to strike the sweet spot between absurdism and realism in everything that she creates.

Poppy is an innovative director, movement director, and theatre-maker who creates dynamic, textured work which explores complex ideas with raw, humorous authenticity.

Insta @rosiedavies1996 & @waxmanharrietpoppy

back to top