HERESY
2022 - 2023
Heresy is a multi-stranded arts project by Jo Blake inspired by the rediscovered Gospel of Mary Magdalene.
Although never officially labelled a heretic, Mary Magdalene’s gospel, and her particular brand of visionary Christianity, has never been officially sanctioned by the church. As the only gospel written in the name of a woman and buried for over 1500 years, it is still viewed by many as illegitimate, and to claim it as scripture is to take a heretical stance. As the exiled and the edited, Magdalene’s fragmented testimony is emblematic of that which has been left out of the sacred in the West: woman and body.
Through performance, talks, workshops, installation and exhibition, this project reframes heresy as a courageous and life-giving act of transgression, that affirms a long-denied and particularly female lineage of spiritual knowledge. What does such knowing offer us now in this time of deep ecological and societal crisis?
The Heresy project is supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England and funding from The Kenneth Fund, Northamptonshire Community Foundation.
Scroll down to find more about the project and how to get involved!
Jo Blake and Robert Clark in The Witness. Photo Ali Wright.
The Witness
His story became History. Her story became Heresy.
The sacred and profane collide in a new performance by interdisciplinary artist Jo Blake, inspired by the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Three copies of the gospel have been found – all of them with missing pages. As the only gospel written in the name of a woman, it reveals Mary Magdalene as a most formidable and courageous spiritual leader, confidante and companion of Christ.
Moving through humour, bold physicality and intricate storytelling; The Witness reveals how one woman’s 2000 year old testimony comes clattering into the life of a contemporary woman, initiating a reckoning and demanding that the missing pages be written anew.
Previous dates:
Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester | Fri 31 Mar 2023
The Core at Corby Cube, Corby | Sat 1 Apr 2023
Stantonbury Theatre, Wolverton | Thu 6 April 2023
The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, Northampton | Sat 8 Apr 2023
Royal & Derngatre, Northampton | Wed 17 May & Thu 18 May 2023
Credit: Strelka & Rosie Powell
CREATIVE TEAM
Performers | Jo Blake and Robert Clark
Director | Jo Blake
Movement Director | Ben Duke
Lead Dramaturg | Lootie Johansen-Bibby
Visiting Dramaturg | Sheila Ghelani
Collaborative Devisor | Georgia Tillery-Randak
Designer | Ruth Stringer
Lighting Designer | Adi Currie
Sound Designer | Patch Middleton
Producer | Courtenay Johnson for Carbon Theatre
Production Manager | Fiona Scott Lockyer
Stage Manager | Emma Drostby
Pieces of work by Trish Hughes, examples of paper making.
Past Workshops
Saturday 12 November, 6 - 9pm at Bar Bar Black Sheep Café, Milton Keynes.
Saturday 26 November, 10am - 1pm at Wicksteed Park, Kettering.
Saturday 3 December, 1pm - 4pm at KHL Community Workshop, Corby.
Saturday 11 March, 10am - 1pm at Grosvenor Centre, Northampton in their Gathering Space (Upper Mall).
Saturday 25 March, 10am - 1pm at Attenborough Arts Centre, Leicester.
Gospel Making Workshops
Inspired by the rediscovered Gospel of Mary Magdalene, these workshops will explore the gospel-making process and help you to create your own. Through this two-part workshop, you will learn about the heritage and meaning of the word ‘gospel’ to explore writing your own text to then embed into your own handmade paper, embellished with wild flower seeds and other natural materials.
We are hosting these workshop in Milton Keynes, Kettering, Corby, Northampton & Leicester.
Part I: Creative Writing with Jo Blake
The Old English word ‘spel’ means to speak or tell - to weave magic with words, or cast a ‘spell’. The word ‘gospel’ translates as ‘good story’, or ‘good spell’, and is viewed as sacred text - scripture. However, many heretics followed a path of gnosis, or direct experience of ‘god’, rather than canonical scripture. So where does sacred text meet personal experience? What words make up our personal gospels and experience of ‘the mystery’? What spells are we ready to cast or re-weave? Inspired by scriptural form, we will work with metaphor and image to write new, personal gospels, or ‘good spells’.
Part II: Paper-Making with Trish Hughes
Paper artist Trish Hughes will then lead you through the process of hand-making two paper sheafs on which our gospels will be written. Wild flower seeds, and other organic matter, will be embedded in the paper - one sheaf to keep, and one to be given away, planted or offered, wherever your ‘good spell’ wishes to be cast.
What to expect
The full workshop is 3 hours with a short break in the middle. All materials will be provided, please just bring with you a drink and maybe a snack for the break! Although, if you would like to bring any materials from home then please feel welcome to do so. The Paper-Making section of the workshop involved water so please wear clothing that allows you to move and comfortable as well as being able to get a little mucky.
Any questions, please contact Courtenay at courtenay@carbontheatre.org.uk
Pop-Up Installation
We took over the Gatherings Unit in the Upper Mall of Grosvenor Centre, Northampton, from 10-18 March 2023. Open 10am - 4pm every day except Monday, you could drop in and spend as much time as you like with us exploring. One of our facilitators, Alex, was in every day and able to interpret using British Sign Language.
About the installation
Welcome to a world inspired by Mary Magdalene.
Despite still mainly being known as the ‘repentant prostitute’, Mary Magdalene was in fact a most formidable and courageous spiritual leader; a confidante and companion of Christ; a visionary and witness, and radically gender-non-conforming woman of her time. The Christianity that we know now has passed on through an almost exclusively male line. What might it be like if Mary’s testimony and teaching were to be re-incorporated? Literally… brought back into the body?
For people of all faiths and none, this temporary installation invites you to dwell in the imagined world of Mary for a while - a place to pause, reflect, write, eat or perform a ritual. Through creating the space to explore one woman, we invite reflection on the role of women more generally, and how their experiences and practices have been judged, misinterpreted or edited out of male-led religions. We question how legacies of feminine spirituality live on in the bodies and imagination of contemporary people.
WHAT TO EXPECT
❧ An interactive installation
❧ A visual and spatial experience
❧ A place to pause, reflect and write
❧ A place to be together
❧ A place to devise your own personal ritual
❧ Space to question, wonder, examine…or eat your lunch!
CREATIVE TEAM
Lead Artist | Jo Blake
Facilitators | Jo Blake, Alex Nowak & Lootie Johansen-Bibby
Designer | Ruth Stringer
Producer | Courtenay Johnson for Carbon Theatre
Production Manager | Fiona Scott Lockyer
Stage Management | Emma Drostby & Leo Nicholson
Online Creative Talks
A series of four creative talks that bring together artists, academics and practitioners to discuss, wonder at and amplify the legacy of Mary Magdalene, female spirituality and heresy. These creative talks are part of a wider project, HERESY by Jo Blake; a multi-stranded arts project inspired by the rediscovered Gospel of Mary Magdalene.
Missed the talks? Watch the pre-recorded talks here:
Previous Talks:
#1: A Being in Relation to Others: Mary Magdalene as avatar and ecological visionary
Speakers: Margaret Starbird and Sophie Strand
Using images of Mary Magdalene, including mosaic images by artist Lilian Broca, Margaret Starbird will draw on her extensive knowledge and lived experience to discuss Magdalene as ‘Avatar of the Easter Mysteries’, and the sacred marriage symbolism at the heart of Christianity. Following this, Sophie Strand will bring to us her keen and thoroughly original ecological reading of the Magdalene and the mistranslations that have undermined the potency of her wisdom.
#2: Translating Spirit: words, scripture and mis(ing)translations
Speakers: David Curtis, Ella Rozett and Dr Sarah Pankhurst
Few people have heard of The Gospel of Mary – even fewer have read it. Yet this short but powerful text gives a remarkable insight into an early version of the Jesus movement and paints a picture of Mary Magdalene as the disciple who best understood and embodied his teachings. What is the context in which these words were written, read, buried, and then found? What can these remnants tell us about Mary’s Christianity? What might any of this mean for us today? Drawing from their direct experience with the Gospel of Mary, David Curtis will talk about their relationship to the gospel, and Dr Sarah Parkhouse will take us deeper into Mary’s Christianity and its relationship to the orthodoxy of the Church.
#3: Seeing with the Eye of the Heart: the body in mystical experience
Speakers: Janet Adler, Prof. Jane Bacon and Dr. Jo Blake
Central to Mary’s gospel are the teachings she receives from Christ in a ‘vision’, in which she also asks about the nature of ‘visions’. Much of Christ’s response is torn out of the gospel. We do know that Christ refers to place within the human call ‘the nous’, sometimes translated as the ‘eye of the heart’, in which the heart is an ‘aperture of spiritual perception’. In this way, Mary is connected to a lineage of female Christian mystics, who are all transformed by detailed visionary experiences. In this session, Dr Jo Blake will discuss non-ordinary visionary experiences with the founder of the discipline of Authentic Movement, Janet Adler, and Jungian Psychologist Prof. Jane Bacon. We will explore what the relationship is between this mode of perception and femaleness, and how and where the physical body and imaginal body meet.
#4: Heretical Art: reclaiming heresy as a loving act of transgression
Date: 7-9pm (GMT), Thursday 15 December 2022
Speakers: Jo Blake, Riham Isaac, Lisa Lapidge, Mikael Oberg, Laura Burns & Izzy Brittain.
The contemporary definition of Heresy is ‘a belief or opinion contrary to orthodox religious doctrine’, or more generally, ‘an opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted’. If we trace the etymology, we end up with the Greek hairesis, meaning ‘choice’, referring to a party or school of thought. Overtime, this difference or division has taken on the more negative connotation of ‘faction’. As time went on, these ‘heretics’ became associated with ‘false’ beliefs and were violently expelled from the growing orthodoxy of the church. In this talk, contemporary artists will discuss how they are working in relation to orthodox religious ideas and environments, and how there ‘heretical’ position informs their work and identity.