About Flavia
Flavia Bertram is a theatre maker and facilitator with over two decades of experience in physical theatre, clown and participatory arts. She holds an MA in Applied Theatre (Distinction) from Goldsmiths and a Diploma in Corporeal Mime from Theatre de L’Ange Fou (Decroux lineage), with ongoing training in Pochinko Clown with John Turner at the Manitoulin Centre for Creation and Performance.
Her facilitation work includes Theatre of Seeds at Kew Gardens with The Recovery College (a mental health education service), Ceremony of Self (Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games cultural programme), projects with Spare Tyre Theatre, Jacksons Lane, Midlands Arts Centre, The Moseley Hive, Westminster Society for People with Learning Disabilities at the Tate, and Royal Ontario Museum. She works with diverse communities, including women navigating life transitions, older adults, young people in pupil referral units, and people with learning difficulties.
Co-founder, producer and performer with HOAX Theatre, touring five productions to VAULT Festival, V&A Museum, ONCA Gallery, Theatre Olympics (Delhi & Bhopal) and Mimesis Festival (France).
Community production credits include Theatre Re/Vocal Eyes at London International Mime Festival, Pacha People with Good Chance Theatre at Museum of the Home/Bernie Grant Arts Centre, Dance Research Studio/Jacky Lansley at Modern Art Oxford .
Testimonials: Theatre of Seeds @ Kew Gardens / Recovery College
“Working with Flavia is so lovely. Her passion and love for bringing together plants, creativity and play comes across so clearly. She really creates a special space for participants.” -Valentina Zunio, Community Producer, Kew Gardens
“I feel so energised. We’ve really played like children together today!”
“We went so deep into this work and it was so fun. You really got me thinking about my life differently, it’s lighter.”
Testimonials: Ceremony of Self
“I didn’t know my daughter could do that!” — Participant’s mum
“These sessions have become a part of my self-care routine.”
“I feel so loose and free and really let go in this session.”
“Ceremony of Self-Power was one of the best nights of my life.”
Training & Research Network
This R&D will draw on expertise from leading practitioners, including Rachael Savage, Vamos Theatre (the UK’s foremost full-mask company), Familie Flöz (internationally acclaimed German mask theatre), and John Wright (mask pedagogy pioneer). Research conversations include academics specialising in African masquerade traditions, Japanese Noh, and First Nations mask practices.
The Council of All Beings: Applying Mask in Community Settings
On Beltane/May Day, I will deliver an adapted version of The Council of All Beings to celebrate the coming of Spring at The Hive, Moseley and in Moseley Park and Pool.
The Council of All Beings is a workshop/ritual developed by Joanna Macy and John Seed for rainforest activists and explained in her book The Works That Reconnects written with Molly Brown.
It allows participants to “step aside from human identities and speak on behalf of other life-forms. It is excellent for growing the ecological self, and building a sense of our solidarity with all life, and fresh awareness of the damage wrought by one upstart species.
Following a ritual opening, participants allow themselves to be chosen by another life-form, for whom they will speak in Council. They prepare themselves to do this by reflecting on their life-form, by making a mask to represent it, practicing moving and speaking as that life-form, and finally gathering in a formal, structured Council to speak their concerns and share their gifts to the world.”
The Council of All Beings comes from an activist context, however, I believe it offers and incredible opportunity for deep play in community settings while reinforcing participants bonds with the natural world. My adaption of the Council of All Beings will draw on my existing theatre/facilitation practice to create an accessible intergenerational version so that communities can reap the health and social benefits from time spent playing creatively together with the more than human world (i.e. plants, animals, elements).
