Interview with 2025 Experimental Performance Fellow, Emma Maye Gibson

Tell us a little about yourself

I am a being who has been studying and celebrating presence and performance for many decades. My creative spirit sings with legacies of border riders, rascals, poets, dancers, storytellers, clowns and energies exploring liberation, pleasure, catharsis, ritual and release. I am known as a Betty Grumble who can be described as a personal goddess/goddexx, war mask, love letter, surreal showgurl, psychadelic autobiographic critter and tool for rememberance. I am a proud Ecosexual, Sex Clown and Performance Artist. I consider the late great Lebanese -Palestinian poet Candy Royalle one of my greatest guides and believe in the mantra 'Thank You Body'. I have been given many gifts by the powerful community of makers that dwell on Gadigal and am excited to keep on going, sharing these gifts and meeting in rooms to generate 'Pure Love.' I am an Aries, Leo, Leo and enjoy long walks along the beach and short sprints into the abyss.

Why did you apply for the Experimental Performance Fellowship?

I felt I was ready to dive into depth of research that would benefit greatly from the fellowship support. I felt ready to take on the responsibilty the fellowship offers and rest in the space it creates for dreaming, action and collaboration.

"...the fellowship has helped me ground into purpose in how this next work might help bodies, elevate our offerings and create good affirming energy."

- Emma Maye Gibson

Give us a recap on your fellowship year

The year so far has been filled with adventure and unraveling. The fellowship supported a pilgramige to two ancestral homelands. Ireland and Malta. I sought out temple, ritual and sacred sites in these homes, including great stone temples Newgrange and Ħaġar Qim. I travelled alongside collaborater Ben Paul post an Edinburgh Fringe season of work where we fell/felt into our questions around gathering, worship, sacrifice, divination and embodiment. Time and space was given to breathe into these sites and the resonance they held. After travelling I conducted an artist talk and open studio during LIVEWORKS in collaboartion with mystic Angela Dix where we experimented with channeling as a response to my travel and the deeper yet unconvered potentials of the emergent work of BODY SPELL. I am in a process of writing and planning the next development which will include work with sound artists and industrial design to shape our performance space. In the pain and tumult of the world, the fellowship has helped me ground into purpose in how this next work might help bodies, elevate our offerings and create good affirming energy.

How will your time as the Experimental Performance Fellow impact your career going forward?

This has continued to bring me a sense of belonging within creative ecosystems. I feel a sense of recognition in this process that inspires me to keep on navigating and connecting authentically to like minded people and places.

Any advice to someone thinking of applying to the program?

Quiet the mind and open the heart to the space in between things. The fellowship is an opportunity to orient and breathe in the flurry of maintaining healthy art life (let alone any life, life). It is a nutritious and mighty tool to create space for experimentation and play in your world. Thank You Body.

Learn More about the Experimental Performance Fellowship.

Photography by Liz Ham.