Gemma is a creator, director and performer in immersive work with twenty five years of experience. She started making immersive theatre at Cambridge - and then came to London and formed Shunt with friends. She has travelled the world with her own work and with workshops - and is always open to new conversations and collaborations.
SHUNT (2000-14)
She shared the artistic directorship of the multi-award-winning Shunt collective. And performed in all shows.
‘An astounding piece of theatre - an immersive experience. Radical. Original. Incredible.’
TIME OUT
‘To say that it was exciting just wouldn't do justice to the experience. Your preconceptions were forcibly rearranged.’
TOM MORRIS
‘Shunt pioneered what came to be known as immersive theatre.’
WIRED
‘The daddies of immersive theatre.’
TIME OUT
‘The most innovative theatre company in Britain.’
THE GUARDIAN
‘Fantastic alarming inventiveness.’
THE INDEPENDENT
‘The whole thing felt like being inside the head of a drunken genius.’
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘Stunning immersive theatre’
DERREN BROWN
‘The most astonishing and disorienting coup de théatre I've ever seen. It really felt, watching Dance Bear Dance, like something new was happening. It was in the best way totally mind-blowing. I've never seen anything like it. It was strange, wild, beautiful and funny and it conjured astonishing things out of the darkness.’
NICHOLAS HYTNER
Nicholas Hytner saw Shunt just before he took over as Artistic Director of the National Theatre. This resulted in him programming a new Shunt Event for his inaugural season (2005). Crucially, this was to be performed in Shunt’s own venue and not NT Southbank. This was the first time the National Theatre had ever put an off-site show in their main programme and it enabled Shunt to devise an extraordinary visual feast.
It was also funny.
Tropicana was trashed by the critics, but went on to be a cult hit, introducing immersive theatre to the mainstream.
As well as the large scale shows, Shunt are known for running the Shunt Lounge Nightclub (2006-10), where they curated over a thousand artists and companies and reached an audience of over half a million.
‘The very best place. The very best people. Shunt were, without doubt, one of the best things to happen to us as a company. They were fundamental in keeping us playing, experimenting and believing it was possible - and for that we are forever in their debt.’
CLARE BERESFORD - LITTLE BULB (Olivier Award Winners)
‘The best bar in London.’
THE EVENING STANDARD
Performance IN REAL environments
Gemma began working with fictions integrated into real landscapes while studying at Cambridge. On graduating, she was in the performing company for Incarnate - a wild reimagining of the Passion of Christ on the streets of Edinburgh.
‘Theatre bursting out of its own emergency exit.’
THE GUARDIAN on INCARNATE (Award Nomination)
She played Miranda in Chris Goode’s production of The Tempest (2000), in audience’s homes - a different venue for every performance.
’One of the all-time great Edinburgh Fringe productions.’
THE GUARDIAN on THE TEMPEST
In 2001, Gemma met Silvia Mercuriali, who was playing in public spaces, and they were immediately excited to collaborate. Their first show, Pinocchio, invited an audience of three into the back seat of a car. With a filmic score, and close up performance, the city became the scenography, the sunset became the lighting and the reality of the journey became an epic adventure into the belly of the whale.
They have toured the world.
‘The real star of Pinocchio is Dublin itself, made strangely new and wondrous.’
DUBLIN TIMES (Award Nomination)
DIRECTOR
Gemma is a commissioned writer and director for the RSC - she created their first devised immersive production in 2017.
‘This is bold, brilliant work - an almost orgiastic visual experience’.
THE STAGE
PERFORMER
She has recently been working with Jack Aldisert at Deadweight - she joined the performance company for The Manikins, after which she played Hedda in Hedda Gabler. Other collaborations include: Darkfield, Tai Shani (Turner Winner), Punchdrunk (Silverpoint & The Third Day), Marisa Carnesky (Ghost Train) & designer Gary Campbell, with whom she made a show for the BAC one-on-one festival:
’The luminous Gemma Brockis is Max, and she’s so adorable you just want to eat her up. As delightful as any pudding. Go and be transported.’
FOURTH WALL
ONLINE
In her pursuit to tranform new spaces into new stages, she imagined the isolation of lockdown as a site for performance. First, she opened her very own university - The University of O. Then, she curated and designed Oddvent - an advent calendar, involving twenty four world-class artists making twenty four mini experiences, reaching homes across the world.
‘Oddvent was necessary for the communal soul of participants and makers alike. It sustained us and nourished us during an isolating time, and brought us close together.’
JULIA MASLI
Testimonials
‘I have worked with Gemma on numerous immersive projects. She is an incredible theatre maker, writer & collaborator. She has a unique ability to determine what is truly important and meaningful amongst the general chaotic overload of the creative process.’
DAVID ROSENBERG - Co-founder of Shunt / Now Artistic Director of Darkfield
‘Gemma Brockis is one my favorite bright minds in immersive performance.’
BRIAN SOLOMON - Creative Tech Director at Framestore, NYC & Creator of XR team for Meow Wolf
SELECTED LINKS & publications
USEFUL EXTRACT FROM UNIVERSITY OF O : GLOSSARY OF THEATRICAL TERMS
immersive theatre :
/ɪˈmɜː.sɪv θέατρο/
Nowadays it is quite fashionable for audiences to wander about right into the middle of the play. Sometimes they get ‘in the way’. When this happens, the actors can either look the audience in the eye like a man, or they can hide behind a sort of flexible fourth wall and pretend that they are in a Henrik Ibsen play, even though the audience is nearly touching their nose.
Image: Britt Hatzius (Pinocchio) | Susanne Dietz (Shunt Shows) | NK Guy (Shunt Lounge) | Lottie Davies (Oddvent)