My journey with Vamos Theatre began with a Facebook ad calling for emerging artists to join the company in a taster workshop which would ‘inspire the next generation of mask performers’. Whilst I’m not sure that I can yet coin myself mask’s next big thing, the workshop and subsequent residency certainly fulfilled the poster’s promises by sparking my curiosity for the medium of mask performance and the scope of possibility for its wider societal impact.

The initial taster workshop focused on the fundamentals of mask performance and allowed you to experiment with a variety of changing faces to grapple with the basic technique. The playful nature of the learning in this workshop is what truly excited me about mask performance. My 3 hours beneath the mask were entirely playful and unbound by expectation - allowing me to leave the Landmark Theatre feeling more freedom within my performance than I had in a long time.

Heading to 101 Outdoor Performing Arts in Newbury for the 4-day Emerging Artist residency presented me with the chance to continue learning, exploring and challenging my own practice through the use of mask. I could never have imagined how the space in which the residency took place and the other ‘emerging artists’ on this course would impact my personal journey throughout. 101 is a hub of creativity that inspires your imagination from the dining room through to the workshop, with practical cabins onsite that allow you to truly immerse yourself in the experience. The rooms are filled with the remnants of companies past, which gives the atmosphere of a living building, burning with its own memories, as if the rooms we played in somehow steered my own creative journey. An atmosphere that was positively reinforced by the kind and passionate staff who obviously work extremely hard to keep the building running.

The other participants on this course made the journey one enriched by shared stories of people from a diverse range of backgrounds, wherein I felt safe to take risks and fully embrace the silliness encouraged by course leaders Honor and Sean. As a young person from rural North Devon barely escaping adolescence myself, entering spaces with artists who seem to have personal practice moving beyond the ‘emerging’ label brings both a feeling of excitement and apprehension; but after day one in the rehearsal room it was clear to me that the variety of lived experience in the room made for a dynamic space, where every offer was valued with a keen anticipation of the unexpected. At the core of 2024’s Emerging Artist class was the unification of cultures uninhibited by language – demonstrating the universal beauty of the wholly physical medium of mask theatre.

Re-engaging with the masks involved re-engaging our own bodies and minds into one homogenous being. We used catwalks to compel our bodies and minds to engage with different masks on a quickfire basis – this exercise was a personal highlight of mine; a moment in the week when I felt entirely liberated and trusting of what my body was offering to the space, partly due to the fact I had lots of fun dressing as a grumpy old man and nonchalantly flipping the bird to my entire audience of peers, my amused glance concealed by the ill-tempered mask I was exhibiting at the time.

Additionally, we explored clowning techniques that would support our ability to play in the mask. Sean’s bonkers practices led to a chorus of hysterical clowns at the height of their given emotions, accompanied by a variety of abstract physical depictions of the world’s changing elements. Whilst these exercises exuded silliness, they challenged me to be sincere in what I was offering my audience and resist the urge to perform – learning which I am determined I will continue to develop within my future pursuits both in and out of mask.

The penultimate day was one spent devising our own short vignettes in groups determined by everyone’s unique mask. Having the chance to independently devise in mask was another new challenge – pushing us as performers and makers to combine our newfound mask technique with authenticity, play and imagination which we had been exercising in the previous sessions.

For me, all the experiences and learning from the residency culminated in the last 24 hours spent in Newbury. It was a final night spent around the fire – revelling in the joy of having spent four days escaping the world with like-minded people, passionate about making theatre which comforts or otherwise challenges the soul - sharing personal experiences to keen ears bonded by a joint experience of play, experimentation and personal discovery. Each journey was profoundly different yet ultimately shared – highlighted by the jumble of eclectic characters that came together to tell their stories on the streets of Newbury on the final day. The binding thread that wove each short story together was a familial bond that survived the trials and tribulations of a day at the beach, but could not be torn apart, and my small part in that, two minutes spent in a mask and a wetsuit sliding around the cobbled streets of Newbury on a neon yellow bodyboard,  summing up my experience perfectly - brilliant, bonkers fun!

Gracie Avery