The Embarking Programme
Welcome to our BA Devised Performances 2025!
We hope you enjoy this showcase of our BA students’ devised performances culminating their hard work and dedication over the last three years.
mEYE divEYEzed
This piece is about the journey of consciousness to self realisation, using eyes as a metaphor for the eyedeologies that we follow and the eyedeas that we have of ourselves
In seeing this piece I would leyeke you to reflect on the eye am’s you once held that are no longer you and the eye am’s that you are currently holding and which may not be. I invite you to let go and see what’s left.
It’s littered throughout our language that seeing is understanding. Do you see my point of view?
The First Date
Meet Gérard a 30 year old single bachelor. He’s back from his first date… EVER!
According to him? the best night of his life, he’s pretty sure he nailed it. After years of waiting, Gérard has finally stepped out of his comfort zone and he feels like his journey is just beginning. He’s confident, he’s charming and he thinks he’s got it all figured out – except… maybe that one thing that happened. Anyways follow along as he entertains you with the tales of his date.
Is this love… or is he about to crash into reality?
Andrew Feely
(He/Him)
Discipline: Handbalancing
Other skills: Hand to Hand, Static Trapeze, Aerial Generalist, Acrobatics
Si o Si
Tomas Briones Rojas
(He/Him)
Discipline: Aerial Straps
Other Skills: Acro Dance, Duo & Group Acrobatics
anti-TIF1-γ
The immune system is the body’s defense mechanism. Autoimmunity occurs when the immune system loses the ability to distinguish between self and non-self, mistakenly attacking the body’s cells and tissues. 80% of autoimmune disease cases occur in women. This disparity is due to a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and immunological factors. Women represent the largest blind spot in modern medicine. Most research studies default to male biology. Female biology, with its beautifully dynamic, cyclical nature is deemed too complex and costly to study. When medicine is built on a male-default model, half the population is systematically misdiagnosed and mistreated.
Osterhoff, Kayla [@dr.kaylaosterhoff]. This isn’t just bad science— it’s dangerous. Instagram, 12 May 2025
Amelia Laughlin
(She/Her)
Discipline: Aerial Hoop
Other Skills: Hair Suspension, Aerial Chains, Fire, Dance
This Little Alien
This little alien has been dropped into a cafe on Earth! Join her while she says goodbye to her beloved space ship and explores her new environment! How will she fit in to this new world ? Keep your eyes peeled as we experience this adventure together.
Willow Hippely
(She/Her)
Discipline: W Silk Loops
Other Skills: Silks, Straps, Poi, Hammock, Fire Performer, Aerial Net and Acrobatics
The Dinner Party
A dimly lit ballroom.
Candelabras flickering.
A facade.
The elite.
Creatures so close to human.
They invite you to a dinner party like no other.
Lucy Potter with Parker Calvert
(She/Her) & (He/Him)
Discipline: Hand to Hand
Other Skills: Contortion, Dance, Aerial Hoop, Acro Dance
Portals
Why not try unraveling?
Why not find an opening?
Blending fluid, expressive movement with the explosive physicality of aerial rope, Chrys has developed a distinctive aerial vocabulary to explore the question: How can queerness be an entryway? Through dynamic choreography and vulnerable imagery, this act invites the audience on a journey of acceptance, identity, and discovery.
Chrys Shipley
(They/Them)
Discipline: Rope
Other Skills: Contortion, Palm Torches, Aerial Silks
Shuffle It Up
Ellie thought and thought but she couldn’t think of anything good.
As she thought, she looked down…
And realised the answer was in her feet
And they took her where she wanted to go
“Almost 2 years of my time here at NCCA was spent with acute tendonosis in my wrist which wouldn’t heal. While I’ve almost fully recovered, I want to reflect on the things I learnt both physically and mentally during that time.”
Ellie Beale
(She/Her)
Discipline: Aerial Hoop
Other Skills: Hula Hoop, Dance, Group Acrobatics, Pole Dance, Fire Performer, Musician
The Fine Line
We drink to laugh, to feel, to belong —
Each sip blurs the boundary.
Is it still celebration… ?
Xélia Froidevaux
(She/Her)
Discipline: Static Trapeze
Other Skills: Hand to Hand, Partner Acrobatics, Dance Trapeze, Aerial Ladder, Duo Straps, Hand to Trap, General Aerialist, Emcee
Even This, Too, Shall Pass
I believed myself immortal.
What is fire on Earth to a being like me?
As humanity fought, I did nothing.
Their food turned to dust, and I turned to comfort.
Consumption has become craving,
The beating of bloody hearts is a pulsating memory.
The rhythm begins to sound like a word:
Anicca. Anicca. Anicca.
Artwork created in collaboration with Isabella Wispa
Madeleine Margot
(She/Her)
Discipline: Chinese Pole
Other Skills: Pole Dance, Aerial Pole, Burlesque, Aerial generalist
What a silly place to draw a line
Same as before
Freya Lindeck
(She/Her)
Discipline: Aerial Straps/ Loops
Other Skills: Dance Trapeze, Static Trapeze, Loops
Somnia
I’ve just closed my eyes again
Climbed abord the Dream Weaver train
Take away my worries of today
And leave tomorrow behind
As we fade out of reality
Seeing the thoughts of the day
Weaved into dreams of night
Escaping from the weight of reality
Parker Calvert
(He/Him)
Discipline: Rope
Other Skills: Duo Acrobatics, Cyr Wheel, Duo Aerial
Mob Fosse
She’s under interrogation.
The crime? Serious.
The alibi? Shaky.
The performance? unforgettable.
She doesn’t flinch and
she holds her ground—on one hand, no less.
Each position is a power move, a calculated risk.
Did she do it… or is she just that good?
Emma van Buuren
(She/Her)
Discipline: Handbalancing
Other Skills:
Acro Dance, Hand to Hand, Dance
Teeth and Cloth
mouth full of teeth, jaws full of silk
Ruby Buchanan
(She/Her)
Discipline: Silks
Other Skills: Rope, General Aerialist, Group Acrobatics
Me, Yourself and I
In a universe of identicals, what does it mean to be individual? These twins are finding it especially hard. Trouble hits this double act when they can’t even show up wearing different outfits!
A celebration of twindom, weaving together the distinctiveness and identicalness of ourselves. What a joy it is to dance and sing we say, we’ll go on dancing ‘til we drop!
Grace Tonkin Wells & Clementine Tonkin Wells
(She/Her) & (She/Her)
Discipline: Doubles Trapeze and Synchronised Dance Trapeze
Other Skills: Clown, Movement, General Aerialist
Playfoolery
Catch me bro 😉
Emma Moon with Tomas Elian Briones Rojas
(She/Her) & (He/Him)
Discipline: Hand to Hand
Other skills: Acro Dance
The Empty Dinner Party
The table is set. The wine is poured. The host is waiting.
Join us for an immersive performance exploring the hunger beneath the surface – where abundance disguises absence, and performance becomes survival. Through acro-dance and theatrics, the host serves up a feast for the senses.
Husterikos
Husterikos is a contemplation on the historical pathologization of the female-presenting experience, viewed through the lens of a “hysterical” Victorian woman exiled to the seaside as a supposed cure. Hysteria, derived from the Greek root hystera (meaning “of the womb”), evolved in the late 1800s into a catch-all diagnosis for women exhibiting behaviors deemed emotionally excessive—a concept that framed female-presenting mental health as inherently tied to their reproductive systems. The term reflects a legacy of medical and societal repression, one that has yet to be fully dismantled today. In this world, the sea is both refuge and restraint—a place of longing and a symbol of escape from control.
Katie Williamson
(She/Her)
Disciplines: Dance Trapeze
Other Skills: Contortion, Hand Balancing
Drought
The bottle drips.
He balances, barely.
A breath too late, a shift too sharp
and the world tilts.
In a landscape stripped bare,
movement becomes memory,
and memory, something else entirely.
Another body appears.
A companion? A projection? A ghost?
They teeter between collapse and connection.
Not every version of the self makes it to the end.
Jonathan Goh & Alfie Sherwood
(He/Him) & (He/Him)
Other Skills (Alfie): Trampoline, Tumbling, Acro Dance
Crew
We’ve always been passionate about ensuring our students have high-quality opportunities to perform their work and donations have helped us continue to produce these shows. But, as with many producing theatres in recent times, the cost of delivery has rapidly increased, and it now costs us roughly £100,000 every year to put on our student productions.
Please consider making a donation today and help support this hugely important part of the learning journey.
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