Gemma was a founder of the Shunt collective - ‘The daddies of Immersive Theatre’ (Time Out).
She has created shows for the RSC and her work has toured internationally.
SHUNT (1998-2014)
In 1999, a group of ten friends started a performance company in a railway arch in Bethnal Green. They went on to run two major venues in central London and create the first ever off-site immersive productions for the National Theatre.
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 most innovative theatre company in Britain.
THE GUARDIAN
The whole thing felt like being inside the head of a drunken genius.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
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 (then artistic director of the National Theatre)
Stunning immersive theatre.
DERREN BROWN
Fantastic alarming inventiveness.
THE INDEPENDENT
Shunt is also known for the Shunt Lounge (2006-10), a nightclub for art of all forms, where they curated their own work alongside the work of more than 1,000 other artists.
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
In 2014, after over a decade of intense collaboration, the collective disbanded.
Performance IN REAL environments
Gemma began working with fictions integrated into real landscapes while studying at Cambridge. While there, 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
She played Miranda in Chris Goode’s The Tempest (2000), performed in audience’s homes.
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. In similar lines, she collaborated with David Rosenberg (of Shunt & Darkfield) on Wiretapper, an audio show hidden in Trafalgar square.
DIRECTOR
Gemma is a commissioned writer and director for the RSC - she created their first devised immersive production in 2017 - Kingdom Come. Other commissions include the V&A Museum, the Curtain Hotel, and an immersive runway show for Tramando Couture, Buenos Aires Fashion Week.
This is bold, brilliant work. An almost orgiastic visual experience.
THE STAGE (on Kingdom Come)
PERFORMER
More recently, Gemma has been working with Deadweight - on The Manikins, after which she played Hedda in Hedda Gabler in a London flat. She has also performed with various London companies including: Darkfield, Storehouse, Tai Shani (Turner Prize 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 - dedicated to teaching The Kiss in all its forms. She created 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 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, one of the companies of the new immersive wave
SHARING OF EXPERTISE
Gemma teaches workshops and directs at the top conservatoire training in the UK, including RADA, Guildhall, LAMDA, Central, Camberwell College of Arts and she recently offered a lecture-workshop at Cambridge University.
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)