In each issue of Suit Yourself, Creative File goes behind-the-scenes to talk with Bristol creatives in their own working space. Zuleika Gregory is a seriously multi-talented woman working here in Bristol involved in aerial, theatre, performance and design. We caught up with her at her home workspace in Montpelier.

So what do you do exactly?
There are lots of aspects to it really, but essentially performance. I perform on corde lisse (vertical rope) and aerial hoop, mainly in tented circus but also cabarets and theatre pieces. There’s the Cardboard Chorus Line which is a very silly chorus line in cardboard costumes (so far we’ve been Easter Island heads and lobsters), I appear as a straight ‬compere and curator for the Cabaret of Curiosities and character compere for the Ausform Platform. The cabaret has been going for almost four years now. I also play baritone ukulele and the saw and sing with Boxcar Aldous Huxley; we’re launching our album this year.

How did all of this come about?
My parents were actors so I’ve always been involved in performing, from youth theatre to my degree and working with the Dave Fish Theatre Company.‪ Coming to Bristol and working at The Cube meant I was around a lot of creative people making it happen for themselves and I started doing things like The Blusherettes characters and helping with decor and parties.

It’s midnight, you’re clean out of ideas and have a pressing deadline - how do you find inspiration?
I dip into books, lots of DaDa and old cabaret stuff, I really enjoy the silly and ridiculous. I’ll pick random words out of books and make bizarre collages. I read poems, look for fairly abstract or unspecific sources that will give a feeling, a lead, unconfined points of inspiration.

Where do you think your ideas come from?
I’m lucky that I find it quite easy to access my imagination! I try not to block or dismiss ideas. I really believe having ideas comes with practice, like anything else. I started doing these Pie In Sky events at The Cube, which is a sort of workshop/party based on that principle. I think that being able to have capricious and quixotic ideas is a part of our freedom that we should relish!

Has anyone or anything particularly influenced your work?
It’s just a broad patchwork of things, being around the right people and attitudes, working out what to take from training, collaborators and everyday experiences.

Is there someone out there you’d like to work with?
I’ve got some great people to work with on little projects right now, but in the long-term I guess I’m seeking a circus-theatre soulmate to create with!

What’s the best bit about doing what you do?
I think the best thing about performing is that it’s very possible to make ideas come into life‬.

How do you think Bristol has influenced your work?
There’s partly this ambition to come back here because I always knew it as a creative city. I left when I was seven for somewhere very rural, so I spent a lot of my teenage years pining and wishing I was here! I think I’ve known and worked with people from so many disciplines so that’s made me think in those terms, about collaborating with other creatives in different ways.

What’s the best thing about Bristol?
People are motivated, they make their ideas and pipe dreams happen without inventing obstacles‬.

What can we expect to see from you in the next year?
Well the cabaret is back in March and there’s the Boxcar Aldous Huxley album launch which I’m very excited about. I’m hoping to do more with the Cardboard Chorus Line too. There may be other things happening but I don’t want to tempt fate! The broader plan is to keep developing skills and to work on my aerial work as a piece of physical theatre, as opposed to creating a circus act.

What do you enjoy most about creating?
It’s definitely when I feel most myself, in that development stage, when you’re researching and playing around with ideas, physically or mentally. I suppose it’s the chance to indulge in all those things I find satisfying, colour and drama and richness. Fantasy.

www.sophisticatedbb.co.uk
www.cabaretofcuriosities.weebly.com
www.boxcaraldoushuxley.co.uk

Elena Goodrum