Kat Joyce is the Co-Artistic Director of Tangled Feet, who are opening Rave New World in Luton on Friday 21st March.
Rave New World delves into the history of Luton’s rave culture and infamous Exodus Collective, and is performed outside a building that the collective occupied and later turned into a community centre. Through the story of two women from Luton from different generations, the story connects Luton’s history of activism, steeped in rave culture, with the local and global challenges faced by young people today.
What drew you to this particular story, and why do you think it resonates so strongly today?
There’s two parts to that answer. One is about why we are currently returning to rave and rave culture – and I think that’s because it came out of a really really tough political decade, very similar to the one we’ve been suffering under. People then needed a place to release and to connect, a place where the divisive politics of the time ceased to exist and where having a really really good time was also happening inside frameworks which were ground-up, fair, free, welcoming spaces.
The Exodus story is next level – what they achieved together, how powerful they demonstrated people could be when they stood together – how they managed to broker peace through partying – it’s really really inspirational, a really important bit of British history that’s happened right here in Luton. It’s been a real honour to meet and get to know Glenn and his crew.
Basically it all resonates today because people are desperately in need of the same things; community, solidarity, a feeling of people able to stand together in the face of a politically really frightening time – and to have a good time while they are doing it.
The show brings together two generations—Zia, a social media star, and Clara, who lived through the 90s rave movement. How do their perspectives clash and connect, and what do they reveal about youth culture then and now?
That’s a great question. Zia’s character has been built from all the young, creative, talented people we’ve got to know in Luton over the past few years. Often they feel really disconnected, like it’s really hard to shape up the next few steps of their life and make things happen. Isolation – apart from through phones – is another big thing. Everyone feels like they are facing the world solo. And younger people also feel overwhelmed at the scale of the world’s problems, which they are getting streamed non-stop through their feeds but sometimes feel powerless to address.
The challenge of joining that up to Clara’s generation is that it can feel like those older people just lived in a different time, and it’s really hard not to let nostalgia take over when we are talking about the great moments from the 80s and 90s. Clara’s generation lived phone-free; they lived in a very different reality. But unless each generation can pass the baton to the next, the job never gets done, and we all just end up feeling overwhelmed by the individual challenges we’re facing. Making the show and the feedback sessions with local people have led to such interesting and deep conversations about our generational responsibilities and how we honour our differences but also find the connections in order to find our collective power.
The production is performed outside a building once occupied by the Exodus Collective. How does the site-specific setting influence the storytelling and the audience’s experience?
It’s huge! The writing is absolutely bedded into the site and its history – the site contains not just the Marsh Farm building, but the source of the River Lea which flows down to London, and Waulud’s bank which is an ancient site of importance. People have been meeting, connecting and partying here for hundreds and thousands of years and that’s a big part of the story. In terms of the audience’s experience, it’s really special to see a place that you are familiar with transformed into something epic and spectacular, to see big but recognisable stories come to life. Hopefully for our audience, this event will be something they always remember when they pass through Marsh Farm.
A real London taxi transforms into an aerial rig, and the show blends dance, live music, and physical theatre. How did these elements come together, and what challenges did they present in staging Rave New World?
The challenges in this show – we are trying to make a HUGE thing happen on a relatively small budget – are also where the brilliant gifts are on this show. In proper homage to DIY culture we at Tangled Feet have looked around at what we have, what our collaborators have, and brought them together to create something special. The Pirates of the Caribina, our aerial partners, are bringing the taxi (and we’ve written the story to centre around a taxi driver!). The two other cars are from an old Tangled Feet show. The speaker stack is from a friend of Glenn’s. The incredible choreography and ensemble movement could only happen because of our collaborators Next Generation Youth Theatre. Everyone we’ve asked has showed up with a smile and wanted to get involved. I feel like this show is really special because it is built out of relationships and generosity – people knowing that when they come together, they can create something bigger than they can separately.
The 90s free party movement was about more than just music—it was a form of resistance and collective action. Do you see echoes of that spirit in today’s youth activism, and what do you hope audiences take away from this connection?
Absolutely I do – today’s youth activism is hugely inspiring. It’s happening in a different way and with different focuses than the past, but today’s young activists have levels of awareness that are incredibly acute and powerful. We are living in truly terrifying times, both from a global political POV and in terms of the climate crisis. Creativity – making an alternative world visible and tangible together – is a huge part of how we both cope with that and counter it. What I hope that audiences take away from this is that when people join up, they are hugely powerful. You can’t stop the beats – while hearts are still beating people will be creating, dancing, resisting and turning the world upside down.
The show ends with an after-party, making the audience an active part of the experience. How important was it to create a space where people don’t just watch but join the movement?
I mean you can’t make a show about epic parties and not invite the audience to be part of that! One of the things I love most about outdoor, physical theatre is that it can have the same effect as a big music set can – it’s like people’s bodies all join together somehow and we experience something collectively and on a really physical, subconscious level. The audience being there live and in the moment are a huge part of what makes the magic happen. We really need opportunities to be together in this way. I’m really hoping that we’ll finish the show and people will be in a place to stay, party, connect for a few more hours and really enjoy themselves.