Gemma works as a director, consultant, performer (and sometime dramaturg) in immersive work, drawing on 25 years of expertise in the field.
shunt (2000-14)
Gemma was a founder of the hugely influential and multi-award-winning Shunt collective, which transformed the British arts scene in the early 2000s, producing both large scale immersive shows and a curated night-club.
‘An astounding piece of theatre. Radical. Original. Incredible.’
TIME OUT
‘Shunt pioneered what came to be known as immersive theatre.’
WIRED
‘Fantastic alarming inventiveness.’
THE INDEPENDENT
‘The daddies of immersive theatre.’
TIME OUT
‘The whole thing felt like being inside the head of a drunken genius.’
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘The most innovative theatre company in Britain.’
THE GUARDIAN
‘The most astonishing and disorienting coup de theatre I've ever seen. It really felt, watching Dance Bear Dance, like something new was happening. It was in the best way totally mind-blowing. I've never seen anything like it. It was strange, wild, beautiful and funny and it conjured astonishing things out of the darkness.’
NICHOLAS HYTNER (AD of National Theatre & immersive hit, Guys and Dolls)
‘To say that it was exciting just wouldn't do justice to the experience. Your preconceptions were forcibly rearranged.’
TOM MORRIS
‘Shunt are innovators whose ambitious work has long worried at the definitions of audience, venue and performance, whose powers to unsettle and surprise through sheer theatricality far outstripped the company’s many aesthetic imitators.’
TOTAL THEATRE
‘The best bar in London.’
THE EVENING STANDARD
BEYOND SHUNT
Gemma created and directed the first devised/immersive production for the RSC - Kingdom Come.
She has collaborated with Silvia Mercuriali since 2003. Their immersive pieces integrate real landscapes and mythic fiction. Pinocchio took audiences on a dark, dangerous joyride in a Fiat 500 through the streets of whatever city they were performing in. This earned them an award-nomination for innovation at Dublin Festival 2007, and they subsequently toured the world. In lockdown, Gemma curated and designed Oddvent, an online 24-day experience designed to accompany us all through isolation.
DIRECTING ARCHIVE : CLICK here
PERFORMER IN immersive
Gemma was invited to perform in Deadweight’s recent hit - The Manikins. That was a lot of fun. She is a voice in the work of Darkfield - now touring. She performed in all the Shunt shows. Other immersive collaborations as a performance include Punchdrunck (Silverpoint), Coney (Small Town Anywhere) & Gideon Reeling (parties). She once made a show for the BAC one-on-one festival, 2011:
‘The luminous Gemma Brockis is Max, and she’s so adorable you just want to eat her up. As delightful as any pudding. Go and be transported.’
FOURTH WALL
Testimonials
‘I have worked with Gemma on numerous immersive projects. She is an incredible theatre maker, writer & collaborator. She has a unique ability to determine what is truly important and meaningful amongst the general chaotic overload of the creative process.’
DAVID ROSENBERG - Co-founder of Shunt / Now Artistic Director of Darkfield
‘Gemma Brockis is one my favorite bright minds in immersive performance.’
BRIAN SOLOMON - Creative Tech Director at Framestore, NYC and creator of the XR team at Meow Wulf
SELECTED LINKS & publications
USEFUL EXTRACT FROM UNIVERSITY OF O : GLOSSARY OF THEATRICAL TERMS
immersive theatre :
/ɪˈmɜː.sɪv θέατρο/
Nowadays it is quite fashionable for audiences to wander about right into the middle of the play. Sometimes they get ‘in the way’. When this happens, the actors can either look the audience in the eye like a man, or they can hide behind a sort of flexible fourth wall and pretend that they are in a Henrik Ibsen play, even though the audience is nearly touching their nose.
Image: Britt Hatzius (Pinocchio) | Susanne Dietz (Shunt Shows) | NK Guy (Shunt Lounge) | Lottie Davies (Oddvent) | (Hotel)