JO BANNON
The Dirty Work
Peek behind the velvet curtain of The Dirty Work, a new solo performance by Jo Bannon.
Blending the tricks of the trade – a white rabbit, a magic wand, a puff of smoke – with her lived experience of visual impairment, Bannon invites you to glimpse a world where truth and illusion, performance and reality converge. Through delicate choreography and magician’s patter, which reveals more than it conceals, she unveils the invisible labour that shapes how we navigate the world - balancing effortlessly between what is seen and unseen.
Through a crip* lens and with a trick up her sleeve, Bannon reveals “the dirty work” that often goes unnoticed on stage and in everyday life. This isn’t just a magic show; it’s a meditation on visibility, disability, and the unseen labour we all perform.
Say “white rabbit” three times, and see the magic unfold before your very eyes!
*Crip is a political and cultural identity embraced by some disabled people.
About Jo Bannon
Jo is an artist working in performance, choreography and film. Her practice is concerned with how our specific bodies, identities and sensory perceptions impact how we experience the world around us, and how this sensory experience can or cannot be conveyed. Her work is informed by her identity as a disabled woman with albinism and attempts to unpick the ways we look, hear and sense our immediate environment in order to rethink or make unfamiliar these intrinsic human behaviours. Bannon’s work is led by form and so manifests in various mediums including intimate encounters designed for single or small audiences, staged performance, dance, film and installation.
Jo has presented work in the UK, Europe, South America, USA, China, South Korea and Australia including Tate Modern, Sydney Opera House, Wellcome Collection, Sadlers Wells, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Itau Cultural Sao Paulo, The Times Museum Guangzhou and HAU Berlin.
Recent work includes Sleight of Hand (2024) Passing (2024) Feeling Thing (2021) Absent Tense (2020) Kitchen Alba (2020, We Are Fucked (2018), Alba (2015), Dead Line (2013) and Exposure (2011).
Credits
Created and performed by Jo Bannon
Directed by Gemma Paintin
Text by Jo Bannon and Gemma Paintin
Sound Design by Dinah Mullen
Set and Costume Design by Katherina Radeva
Lighting Design by Chris Copland
Production Management by Sorcha Stott-Strzala
Magician / Outside Eye - Augusto Corrieri
R&D input from Sindri Runudde and Kit Hall
Photography - Paul Samuel White
VIP Access Producer Ellen Booth
Produced by MAYK
Commissioned by Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Cambridge Junction, The Place & Tramway. With additional support from Fabric and Horizon. Supported using public funds through Arts Council England.
The Dirty Work is part of Blind Magic: A triptych of artworks exploring the performativity of visual impairment. A film Passing, an installation Sleight of Hand and live performance The Dirty Work created by Jo Bannon
Blind Magic has been commissioned by Unlimited, Wellcome Collection, The Space, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Cambridge Junction, The Place & Tramway. With additional support from Fabric and Horizon. Supported using public funds through Arts Council England.
In Development
The performance will premiere in May 2025.
Check out more of Jo’s work, and the BLIND MAGIC triptych, here.
For more information on the project and presenting it, email the Lead Producer Josephine Gyasi: josephine@mayk.org.uk.