I have a skeleton story to tell you

A collaboration with Irini Kalaitzidi. Performed at 'In-cognito', an event by in-grid, Ormside Projects, London, 2025.

Two female performers get prepared to bare their bones on the internet. They get dressed in black and paint their faces with a skeleton-like makeup. They then connect on ChatRoulette carrying the anonymity and the profound exposure that a skeleton brings.

Every encounter with a stranger starts with the invitation ~ I have a skeleton story to tell you. Would you like to hear it? The rare times there is a positive response, the skeleton story unfolds.

Extract from the Skeleton Story

Kari sits at her dressing table and skirts her hands delicately over the items arranged in front of her. Waxy face paints in palettes and sticks, cheap, brittle sponges and face wipes. She hadn’t been living in the area long, having moved abruptly after everything that had happened in the Summer. No, she wasn’t going to think about that, that was a different Kari. So, when she had been asked to attend a Halloween party by a new workmate, Charlotte, she was determined to make a good impression. She’d looked at Charlotte’s social profiles just to get an impression of what kind of event it would be. She scrolled carefully through the feed and considered what she found. Charlotte painted in neon patterns at a festival, Charlotte in full black swan costume at what looked like a house party, Charlotte dressed as sad clown the year before. She looked happy, popular, wide eyed and bright. Charlotte took events like this seriously, so Kari would take it seriously too.

[...]

Someone screamed. Kari just looked down. The water rippled with her reflection - not painted anymore, but bare, gleaming. The edges of torn skin framing her skull, eyes rolling wide in their sockets. She’d done it perfectly. The best skeleton costume she’d ever made.

Thank you, we needed an audience to verify we have a skeleton.