Gemma is a foundational artist of the immersive theatre movement, winning her first awards in 2000 - for Shunt’s The Ballad of Bobby François. She has been commissioned by the National Theatre, RSC, and has toured internationally. She works as a director, performer and consultant and is always open to new collaborations.
SHUNT (1998-2014)
Founder & Shared Artistic Director
In 1999, a group of ten friends started a performance company and rented a railway arch in Bethnal Green, where they made shows and ran cabarets.
‘An astounding piece of theatre - an immersive experience. Radical. Original. Incredible.’
TIME OUT (on The Ballad of Bobby François - 2000)
‘Shunt pioneered what came to be known as immersive theatre.’
WIRED
‘To say that it was exciting just wouldn't do justice to the experience. Your preconceptions were forcibly rearranged.’
TOM MORRIS
‘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 became Artistic Director of the National Theatre and programmed a new ‘Shunt Event’ for his inaugural season (2005). Shunt convinced him to let them perform off-site, in their own venue - the first ever NT main programme production in an off-site venue.
Tropicana was trashed by the critics, but went on to be a cult hit, catapulting immersive theatre into the mainstream. Shunt created four more full-scale shows and opened a space in a warehouse on Bermondsey street for Money (2009).
Shunt is also known for the Shunt Lounge (2006-10), a nightclub for art of all forms. They showed the work of over a thousand artists to 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 from LITTLE BULB (Now 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 (1997) - a wild reimagining of the Passion of Christ on the streets of Edinburgh.
‘Theatre bursting out of its own emergency exit.’
THE GUARDIAN
She played Miranda in Chris Goode’s The Tempest (2000) - performed in audience’s homes (a different venue every night).
’One of the all-time great Edinburgh Fringe productions.’
THE GUARDIAN
In 2001, Gemma met Silvia Mercuriali, who was also 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 sweeping score, and performance both close up and long shot, the city became the scenography for a live road movie. They toured the world.
She created many interventions for the Shunt Lounge Nightclub, including a little cinema auditorium through which the gaze onto the real bar, where the crowd became the extras for an intimate film, played out in secret within it. Then she collaborated on Wiretapper, a headphones show in trafalgar square, with David Rosenberg and Ben & Max Ringham.
DIRECTOR
Gemma is a commissioned writer and director for the RSC - she created their first devised immersive production in 2017 - Kingdom Come.
‘This is bold, brilliant work. An almost orgiastic visual experience.’
THE STAGE
She has made numerous shows and interventions within Shunt venues, including Invitation to a Beheading, Kathy & Lina & The Long Room.
‘Silliness crafted so exquisitely it becomes high art.’
THE STAGE
‘Always brilliantly executed.’
TIME OUT
Other commissions as director include the V&A, the Curtain Hotel, Shoreditch & an immersive runway show for Tramando Couture, Buenos Aires Fashion Week 2008.
PERFORMER
More recently, Gemma has been working with Jack Aldisert at Deadweight - she joined the performance company for The Manikins, after which she played Hedda in Hedda Gabler. She has also performed with: Darkfield, Storehouse, Tai Shani (Turner Winner), Punchdrunk (Silverpoint & The Third Day), Marisa Carnesky (Ghost Train) & designer Gary Campbell, with whom she made a particularly cute show for the BAC one-on-one festival (2012):
’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 transform new spaces into new stages, she imagined the isolation of lockdown as a site for performance. First, she opened her very own online university - The University of O. Inspired by open university. But about kissing.
Then, she curated and designed Oddvent - an advent calendar, involving twenty four world-class artists making twenty four mini experiences, reaching homes across the planet.
‘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 (award-winning clown & contributor)
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 / 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
'Gemma's talk at the Immersive Design Summit was pivotal in teaching me to work with 'the gift of the space' above all else when creating immersive work. From Gemma I learnt to pay attention to multiple layers, instead of smothering the reality of the space with a thick layer of what you wish it to be.'
MIA FOSTER - Director of Uncle Barry’s Birthday Party
SHARING OF EXPERTISE
Gemma is available for lectures, talks, panels and workshops and is very happy to be contacted and to meet new people. Places where she has held workshops or talks include: The Immersive Design Summit (San Francisco), RADA, Guildhall, LAMDA, Central, Cambridge University, Goldsmiths, East 15, Camberwell College of Arts.
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)