A photograph of Jo Bannon wearing a white rabbit mask, seated in a commanding pose on a pink box placed on a vibrant pink carpet, with her legs apart. She is dressed in a black trouser suit and white shirt. She is holding a live white rabbit in one arm. The backdrop features bold pink velvet drapes.
A photograph of Jo Bannon lying on a vibrant pink carpet with her white hair fanned out around her head. She is wearing a black suit and white shirt and hot pink lipstick. Her hand is held to her forehead. The background features a rich pink curtain.
A white rabbit is sitting on a pink floor.

The Dirty Work

Jo Bannon

Bristol

Peek behind the velvet curtain of The Dirty Work, a new solo performance by Jo Bannon.

Blending the tricks of the trade – a white rabbit, a magic wand, a puff of smoke – with her lived experience of visual impairment, Bannon invites you to glimpse a world where truth and illusion, performance and reality converge. Through delicate choreography and magician’s patter, which reveals more than it conceals, she unveils the invisible labour that shapes how we navigate the world - balancing effortlessly between what is seen and unseen. Through a Crip lens and with a trick up her sleeve, Bannon reveals ‘the dirty work’ that often goes unnoticed on stage and in everyday life. This isn’t just a magic show; it’s a meditation on visibility, disability, and the unseen labour we all perform.

Say ‘white rabbit’ three times, and see the magic unfold before your very eyes!

 

Jo Bannon lives in Great Britain and works in performance, choreography and film. Her artistic practice deals with questions of identity, sensory perception and human interaction. The focus is on investigating how our physical bodies perceive the surrounding world. Taking her identity as a disabled woman with albinism as a starting point, Jo Bannon explores the complexity of sensory experience as well as the question of how this can be communicated, shifted or questioned. After presenting Magic of the Hands in Braunschweig at Theaterformen 2024, she returns with the premiere of the follow-up piece, The Dirty Work.   

Production credits

Creation & Performance: Jo Bannon, Text: Jo Bannon, Gemma Paintin, Director: Gemma Paintin, Sound Designer: Dinah Mullen, Set and Costume Designer: Katherina Radeva, Lighting Designer: Chris Copland, Magic Consultant: Augusto Corrieri, Audio Description Consultant: Charlotte Whitten, original Development with MAYK, Production Manager Froud, Producer: Amanda Fawcett, Photos: Paul Samuel White

Commissioned by Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, Cambridge Junction, The Place & Tramway. With additional support from Fabric and Horizon. Supported using public funds through Arts Council England.

The Dirty Work is part of Blind Magic: A triptych of artworks exploring the performativity of visual impairment. A film Passing, an installation Sleight of Hand and live performance The Dirty Work created by Jo Bannon.