Dates

• Existence: Born 1 February 1971

Biography

Marisa Carr a.k.a. Marisa Carnesky, was born on 1 February 1971.

Marisa is a British live artist and showwoman, who uses spectacular entertainment forms, including fairground devices and stage illusion, and draws on themes of contemporary ritual, to investigate social issues from an ecofeminist perspective.

Marisa studied ballet at London's West Street Ballet School during 1987-1988. On completion, she took a degree in Dance and Choreography at the Laban Dance Centre, which she finised in 1990 and enrolled on a Visual and Performing Arts degree at the University of Brighton from which she graduated in 1993.

Marisas' first job was with the Divas Company in 1992 and from there she has had a very prolific performing and creative career. In the mid 1990s, Marisa moved to London where she worked in alternative burlesque. In 1994, she performed in, and was a deviser on, Robert Pacitti's Geek! Her solo performances included the commission for Lady Muck and Her Burlesque Revue at the Now Festival Nottingham (1996), the Nine Breasted Woman at the Duckie Prom Night at the ICA (1997) and Mademoiselle Lefort in the St Valentine's Day Pleasure Parade under the Vauxhall Railway Arches (1998). As a director and member of the Dragon Ladies troupe, she co-created The Grotesque Burlesque Revue (1998) staged at Soho's Raymond Revue Bar.

Carnesky also spent time in New York, where she posed for the performance artist Annie Sprinkle for her Pleasure Activist Playing Cards, and worked with the spoken word performer Jennifer Blowdryer in her Smut Fest. She appeared in HBO's television series Real Sex and the 1998 TV documentary Showgirl Stories From Vaudeville to Vegas, directed by Agnieszka Piotrowska and narrated by Angelica Huston.

Carnesky's first full-length solo show was Jewess Tattooess in 2000, in which she explored the cultural and religious implications of being a heavily tattooed Jewess, breaking the religion's taboo against body art. Jewess Tattooess toured internationally and was staged at Battersea Arts Centre, the ICA, Riverside Studios, Arnolfini, Colchester Arts Centre, CCA Glasgow, Escena Contemporana, Spain; Ireland, Project Arts Centre; Cenpi, Croatia; Cultural Centre Serbia, Theatre Arsenic, Switzerland, Live Art–Kanonhallen, Denmark and the Los Angeles International Festival.

As part of Duckie, Carnesky co-created and starred in C'est Vauxhall in 2002, originally staged at the Vauxhall Tavern, and renamed C'est Barbican when it transferred there during Christmas 2003. The show won the 2004 Olivier award for Best Entertainment. Renamed C'est Duckie, it subsequently toured to Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Sydney Opera House, Berlin, Tokyo, Kyoto and New York.

In 2003, Carnesky created The Girl from Nowhere, a collaboration with the magician Paul Kieve and Hilary Westlake, director of the experimental theatre group Lumiere and Son. Using filmed testimony and magic illusions, the piece retold Jewish and eastern European folktales and stories of migration, exploring similarities between migrant journeys from East to West.

Girl from Nowhere led towards Carnesky's best known and most ambitious work, Carnesky's Ghost Train, in 2004, which also took migrant journeys as its subject.

The train toured the UK for five years, and had residencies at the Trumans Brewery in Brick Lane, Coventry City Centre, Glastonbury Festival and Zomer Van Antwerpen in Belgium. It then became a permanent attraction in Blackpool's Golden Mile, in collaboration with the Blackpool Illuminations, where it won the 2011 British Tourism Award.

Marisa founded her own creative productions company, Carnesky Productions, in 2004. Carnesky Productions is a performance and theatre company responsible for original interactive performance works including Carnesky’s Ghost Train 2004-2014, Carnesky’s Incredible Bleeding Woman 2015 - ongoing and alternative stage school Carnesky’s Finishing School.

Carnesky Productions is interested in the use of spectacle; fairground rides, magic illusions and grand ritual as a means of creating highly accessible provocative work, rooted in popular culture that promotes cultural and political discourses

In 2007, Carnesky created Magic War, inspired by the French government's use of the stage magician, Robert Houdin, to suppress an uprising in Algeria in 1856. With dramaturgy from Lois Weaver and Flick Ferdinando, the show included stage magic from Paul Kieve, and costumes and props by Sarah Munro and Mark Copeland of the Insect Circus. Carnesky appeared as Athena the goddess of strategic war, reimagined as a stage magician performing illusions, accompanied by a male stage assistant, played by various actors.

Between 2008 and 2011, Marisa was artist in residence at the Roundhouse in London, where she established Carnesky's Finishing School, teaching performance skills to young people aged 17–21 over four semesters.

Between 2007 and 2010, Marisa had a Creative and Performing Arts Fellowship at the National Fairground Archive, University of Sheffield.

For the Roundhouse Circus Festival in 2010, Carnesky made Dystopian Wonders, which was later staged at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, the Lowry Salford and Chelsea Theatre.

Carnesky's Tarot Drome, first staged at the Old Vic Tunnels in 2012, was a large-scale promenade show using interactive installations, skate routines, Mexican wrestling and a live rock band. The creative producers were Lara Clifton and Dicky Eaton, the costumes were by Claire Ashley, and a large fairground facade was painted by Martha Copeland. The Tarot Drome was later staged at Latitude Festival (2013), and the Cirque Jules Verne in Amiens (2014).

In 2013–2019, Carnesky completed a PhD at the University of Middlesex. The title of her thesis was 'Dr Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman, Reinventing Menstrual Rituals Through New Performance Practices'.

Carnesky also put on a stage show, in which she appeared as a lecturer presenting a condensed version of her research. The show was staged as a work in progress in 2015 at University College London, as part of the Radical Anthropology Group.

Dr Carnesky's Incredible Bleeding Woman, produced by Lara Clifton with dramaturgy from Kira O’Reilly, toured widely. In 2017, it was staged at the Soho Theatre, the Underbelly, Southbank, and the Edinburgh and Adelaide Fringes. This was followed by a 2018 residency at the Attenborough Centre for Creative Arts at Sussex University, which commissioned a further development of the piece. A UK tour followed ending with a return to Soho Theatre. The show received universal acclaim from the critics.

In 2019, Carnesky presented a new work in progress, Showwoman. Ritual. Action, at the British Library and for Duckie at the Vauxhall Tavern. This grew out of her thesis.

Carnesky has won many awards, including the Laurence Olivier for Best Entertainment in 2004, Edinburgh Festival Herald Angel in 2005 and Time Out Best Theatre in 2004.

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