Now is the Summer of our DiscoTent is a popup Globe theatre façade, used to create a space for running bogan Shakespeare, spoken word and other participatory ‘open mic’ style events, interspersed with Shakespearean-inspired disco.

I’m part of a crew who put on a small community event each year over NY. Around 200 musicians descend on a private property to party, make music and celebrate together for 5 days.

Everybody who comes to the event contributes in some form or another – it’s a gifting economy. I generally contribute in the form of a large installation that’s interactive and participatory. I often use this event to try out installations that I then take to larger public events. In the past, I’ve created and built an 8m diameter Temple space, an Enchanted Forest of Love and Miss Peaches Speakeasy.

This year the theme was a Midsummer Night’s Dream. So I decided to build a pop-up Globe Theatre and create a performance space in collaboration with my fabulous engineer partner, Adam.

Before we built the theatre façade, I created a scaled prototype model to determine sizes, engineering and structural requirements. We decided to create as a modular “kit” that could be assembled onsite, to make transportation easy.

Over the NY period, we built the first full-scale prototype of the Globe theatre façade at the Wild Yam festival, with the help of some fabulous collaborators – Eva, Michael, Talia and Kate.

Dimensions – The façade is 2.4m high x 3.6m wide. The entrance doorway is 1.6m deep, .8m wide and 2.2m high.

Safety and engineering – to ensure safety in environmental situations such as high winds, we used ropes to secure the structure to the ground and to ensure the stability of the panels.

The performance space we created behind the façade was a big hit and was used to run spoken word and Shakespeare book readings, bedtime stories, This is Not a F*cking Bookclub bookclub, uke jams and choir rehearsals.

What’s next?

I’m excited to announce that we have just been given a grant from BOSS to take it to the next level of awesomeness and bring it to Sydney Decom in February and Burning Seed in March. Now on the lookout for lights, velvet curtains, disco balls and other cool decor to jazz it up. Huzzah!

This is the kind of project my Patreon funds. If you would like to see me create more of these projects, please subscribe! I love each and every one of my Patrons – you make it possible for me to create art like this.