2026 ELAgabalus
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An Empress. A Degenerette. A Woman. Lupanaria, which translates roughly as ‘a den of she-wolves’ Meretrix, Noctiluae, the night moths, Nonariae, Gallinae, Quadrantariae, Aeliciariae, Bustuariae, In a word: Prostibula. Speak, o muse, of the Empress of Rome. The long-forgotten, the lied-of, the Sun-Worshipper, the Pagan, The Easterner, the High Priestess, the Sun-On-Earth, the Slut, the Bitch, the Tranny. Speak of that girl, throat-slit at eighteen. Speak of Elagabalus; For she shall hear.
At a moment of attack on trans people's bodily autonomy, ELAgabalus enables us to think about the difficult and messy aspects of trans desire and boundaries. It will allow trans people to have nuanced conversations within the performance and also create a space where cis audience members are invited to play by a different set of rules.
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Read more about ELAgabalus at The Bush Theatre in our TEXTS
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About ELA
ELAgabalus is a one-to-one performance exploring trans intimacy and boundaries. Across two spaces, the trade and the trick, the audience are invited to explore the story of Rome's lost trans empress through cards, contracts, lipsticks, nails and temptations.
ELAgabalus is about the relationship and solidarity between a transfemme ‘not quite a sex worker’ Elagabalus, and their transmasc ‘not quite a bodyguard’ partner, Janus. It is for trans and queer people to have a space to reflect on our shared histories, and how we may negotiate the boundaries of our bodies together, while also inviting others to bear witness to these relationships.
2024 / 2025 we are on the brink of something
There is a cycle of seven scores. And if you do them often enough, the world changes shape.
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Say it like a prayer or a bird call when you're a child. but you have to do it a thousand times, a hundred thousand, and we only have an hour today. So I am asking you to imagine that we have already done it a thousand times. that you are coming today as you have come before, and you know this, and you know us, and you know each other. I am asking you to imagine this. Imagine this.
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A site-responsive and intimate sharing of mint tea and stories, as we build into a community capable of taking action to achieve a shared goal.
In a world where we rarely have the time and space to grieve or heal, this work provides a held artistic space to move through and process feelings while constructively giving you a guide to organising in your communities. Each participant will leave the experience with a booklet of prompts, enabling you to use these scores to facilitate your own actions. Each performance also builds on the last, with the constructions of previous audiences present in the space.
Join us as we attempt to elongate time, to stretch out an hour into enough space to breathe, through text, silence, and live, participatory sculpting.
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Find A booklet of 7 scores in our TEXTS
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A community demands much: belief, agility, compassion, power, fear, caring, cooking, survival, strategy, comradeship, banners, placards, policies, plans, headquarters, printing presses, video editors, propagandists, agricultural experts, engineering students, volunteer teachers, legions of doctors, speed, strength, courage, discipline, daring, but most of all I think it requires the patience to plant a forest you know you may never see.
Quotes from Participants //
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"The show was a highly captivating, powerful and immersive experience suitable for audiences of all ages. It felt like being part of a beautifully curated journey. Thoroughly enjoyed the tea and being part of the ritual with the earth."
Georgia-Leah Simpson / Artist
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"Rarely do we see work about political action which is both hopeful and meditative. shelf/break manage this and navigate the challenging and fearful times we are living in, in a way which feels safe, galvanising and deeply creative."
Izzy Rabey / Facilitator & Director
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dreaming under hidden tree canopies
19.03.24 / rose bruford college
Our first iteration of the piece was 1 hour and took place outdoors, on the grass opposite Lamorbey House at the Rose Bruford institution. It was influenced by our previous two years of work opposing Rose Bruford as part of the Built On Blood anti-imperialist collective which we were involved in the founding of.
It was performed three times in a row, each loop ending with one audience exiting and a new audience entering. We performed at 3PM, 4PM, & 5PM. The show was designed for a maximum of 10 audience members at a time.
We repeat the performance because we believe actions build towards community through iteration and rehearsal; that you cannot make community without growing through constant repetition of these actions. We want the experience to feel cyclical, and for the environment to change and grow over the iterations.
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organsing in tower blocks
22.03.25 / camden people’s theatre
Our second iteration was an attempt to reframe the show to think through the legacies of anti-imperialist organising in cities, urban environments, and Camden specifically. We set up our Base in the CPT Cafe, curating a space for people to breathe while the sounds of the city drifted in and mingled with our words.
The act of setting up a tent indoors resonated for us with the student encampments that had occurred just down the road at the universities nearby, and the homeless encampment near to the CPT. We see how oppressed people are so often forced into fragile and temporary spaces of living between bouts of state repression.
While this performance was not durational, consisting of just one loop, we hope that the audience were able to take away many of the same experiences and energies of previous iterations.
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building in community gardens
summer 2026 / plot 9 maze hill
Upcoming iterations are planned to include a performance at Plot 9 in Woolwich, and hopefully a return to the location of some of our previous iterations!
We also are looking to build towards a tour of Britain in 2026, so if you are a venue with an outdoors space which would be interested in hosting us, please get in touch! It’s useful to have these conversations in advance of our funding applications.
A full video of the performance is available upon request by venues or artists.
Additionally, as each audience member leaves the performance with a copy of A booklet of 7 scores, we hope that these booklets will have a long afterlife as a toolbox for the revolutionaries who became part of our community for a short time.
2023 Helicopter Girls
"I’ve rarely seen a hymn to femmes who are fucked up and failing." Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarsinha
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A text-based game about transmisogyny, grief, and transfeminist aesthetics. It’s available to play, alongside its earlier iteration ‘War Music’ on itch.io as Orcsbian. It is inspired by the repeated patterns of social isolation and attack experienced by transfeminine artists, as exemplified in the 2020 Isabel Fall incident. This game is a tribute to the women who have been lost to social and transmisogynistic violence.
In 2023, Helicopter Girls was launched at Stanley Arts Centre in an event which included a free Twine workshop run by Jane.
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shelf/break are currently beginning the process of adapting Helicopter Girls into a live performance suitable for theatre spaces. This will mix live game-play with performance, using lo-fi technologies like Twine to explore transfemininity and u/dys/topian possibilities.