Our divine Arts and Participation Programme is here
Wilderness is famed for its dazzling bricolage of arts and for unearthing treasures from the most alternative and innovative corners across a dizzying multitude of disciples. It is renowned for record breaking participation, engineering unconventional commissions and importing awe-inspiring spectacles to the rolling Cornbury landscape. Bass-heavy Bristolian superstar DJ Eats Everything collaborates with Missy Fatale’s Haus of Fatale to bring a surprise show to The Atrium. Expect risqué performance and banging beats.
The House of Sublime returns in fine form, with its dedicated bar and club soundsystem providing a late night party venue and theatrical performance space. The House of Sublime has become integral to the ever-evolving, divinely celebratory Wilderness identity: enter a world of the fabulous and the unexpected from award-winning cabarets to contemporary drag. This is a programme which unites a talented range of performers from the forefront of many scenes. Alt-pageant Alternative Miss Wilderness is a fixture - this year hosted by Lolo Brow - while international burlesque siren Missy Fatale, a long-time Wilderness favourite, collects and curates her own band of performance artists at The Haus of Fatale and at avant-garde club night FATALISM. The Cocoa Butter Club is a multidisciplinary cabaret troupe of queer performers of colour ‘where the melanated are celebrated’. They deliver a menu of workshops, performance and extravagance, as well as clubnight Slicc n Thicc: a generous dose of RnB and Hip Hop from celebrated DJ's. Pinky Promise bring their collective of sensual deviants to create live-action hedonistic extravaganzas with a heart. Other performers include Dominatrix Eva Oh, trash-electro-disco outfit Chewy She, pole-dancing comedy witch Sian Docksey and Storyteller and Queen Amrou Al-Khadi.
Brand new for this year, the In The Wild series transports a host of beautiful experiences outside of the arena, and thrusts them deep into the magic and mystery of the Wychwood Forest. Theatre In The Wild uses the landscape as its set, with completely amazing troupe The Fabularium taking you on a journey away from the paradise of Cornbury Park with their show The Hare and The Moon. Hunter Gather Cook return with three wild workshops exploring the delicious wild food we have all around us. Try Foraging, Deer Butchery and Crayfish Trapping followed by an hour-long cocktail and canapé reception in our woodland kitchen to enjoy the fruits of your labours.
Experts of the natural world Reveal Nature invite you to join them on three forest adventures: Biofluorescence Night Walks are guided walks exploring the unique phenomenon where certain organisms emit light in different colours than the ones they absorb. Armed with UV torches, you’ll encounter a diverse array of species from fungi to insects and plants. Microscopic Marvels: a unique and fascinating experience exploring the microcosm of nature through the lens of a microscope. Aromatic Adventures: a guided journey through nature led by your nose and sense of smell, to explore a wide range of local plants and essential oils. Cornbury Estate and the Head Falconer of Apollo Falconry bring you a unique Falconry Experience, with the chance to handle a range of spectacular Birds of Prey and experience them flying within the settings of a historic Royal Hunting Forest. In Free Your Creative Voice, Alison Love David takes you in a freeing singing/ creativity workshop to leave you uplifted, connected and celebrated. Part of the same series, Talks In the Wild includes a Story Walk with Rachel Reed, A Wild Medicine Walk with expert herbalist and a Walking Discovery Session with the Woodland Manager of Cornbury Estate: an enchanting 3.5km summer trail through the magnificent Wychwood Forest.
The Art Studio boats a whole raft of activities and workshops: from Macrame with Textile Artist and Weaver Alice Hume to Playful Portraits with Frances Stanfield, Make Your Own Zine, Life Modelling, Still Life Flowers and Abstraction, make a cardboard quilt square with Crisis Charity and many more disciplines to try. The Cat’s Whiskers Cocktail and Cabaret Club presented by Wonderment moonlights here too, melting hearts and tantalising tastebuds with world class cabaret and inspired libations.
Roaming Theatre is a big part of the Wilderness vibe, with a colourful and inventive cast of characters traversing the parkland, casting spells and sprinkling magic: Judith Hope’s celestial puppets, the Chivaree Lampshade Ladies oozing sophistication and elegance, Puppets with Guts The Lips: a chorus of delightfully deviant divas whose mouths have broken free from their bodies, characters from Natural Theatre Company and Valarian Entertainment and Bedlam Oz with their bizarre and hilarious Slinky.
The Playing Fields is the capital of games and participation - and the place to go for raucousness on the green. Whether it’s a Lycra 80’s Aerobics Class, Mass Musical Benches, A night game of Disco Dodgeball, a race at the Grand Irrational, Jenga Death Match, a Great Big Festival Football Match or the infamous Cricket with Bearded Kitten, you will find your belly laughs. The Club House is the cornerstone of the fields and also presented by The Village Circus. Here you’ll find a Disco Ceilidh Hoedown, Fleetwood Mac Party, a Naked Pop Quiz, Twisted Time Machine and many other family friendly happenings.
From bizarre fete stalls to Maypole dancing and psychedelic twists on traditional games, The Faraway Fete - brought to you by Tootles + Nibbs, will provide a quintessentially British spectacle - celebrating our delightful cultural melting pot, innate oddness, charm, and sense of community. Bringing hardcore beats from the underground German Haus scene, Acid Klauss is a Bavarian beatboxer, music producer, club veteran and comic creation of Charlie Partridge. There’s also Toe Wrestling, Faraway Croquet, Margate’s premier high leaping Morris team Bower Street Morris and the Theatre of The Small.
Togetherness is a ‘movement for meaningful human connection’ who have hosted a venue at Wilderness for many years, always facilitating intimate and hilarious moments with a colourful array of happenings. Their programme focuses on boundaries, relationships and desires, with a range of workshops and play sessions including How To Ask For What you Really Really Want, How Not To F*ck Up Your Kids, Understanding Family Dynamics, a Crafty Bitch self-critic puppet workshop, Ecstatic Cacao Parties, Bedtime Takes, singalongs and a Salsa Rendezvous.
Explore far and wide.
It's all for YOU.
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