​Starring Laura Murphy as herself amidst the failing performance of Western civilisation, A Spectacle of Herself charts a cosmic voyage through performance, probing into space and outer space, and taking up space - on your screens and in your lives.

Slicing herself into appropriately sized, appropriately seasoned, appropriately inappropriate portions, Laura navigates in the footsteps of spectacle maker Bridget Jones, asking is she 'too much’ ? Is she 'not enough’? Or can you love her just as she is? 

Following on from Laura’s debut solo Contra, A Spectacle of Herself is a performance film emerging from research into a new live work.
​Interrogating themes around virtuosity, autobiography, identity, and the spectacularized body, A Spectacle of Herself draws on Laura’s doctoral research which investigates aerial work’s potential as a critically engaged practice and its use as a vehicle for social and political propaganda. ​

Credits

Performed and written by Laura Murphy 
Theatre Director: Ursula Martinez
Lip Sync Consultant: Dickie Beau
Art Director: Nicole A’Court-Stuart 
Film Director, Edit and 1st Camera: Holly Black, Black Bark Films
2nd Camera: Aphra Evans
Sound: Jo Barker and Nicole A'Court-Stuart

Produced by Nicole A’Court-Stuart for Contra
Commissioned by Cologne Circus and Dance Festival and The Lowry, Salford. 
Supported by Arts Council England 
​

past performances

2024

March - Lectorate FILM, The Hague, NL

2023

November - Belfast Film Festival, Belfast, UK

​2022

Feb/March - Stroud Film Festival 2022, Stroud, UK
March/April - Circus International Film Festival 2022
April - Common(ing) Thread, The Hague, NL

2021

May - Circus Dance Festival, Cologne, DE
June - The Lowry (online), Salford, UK
​October - Circus City, Bristol, UK