Rat Rose Bird premiered at Fierce Festival in March 2011. It is a BAC Scratch Commission and was made with funding support from Arts Council England. In addition to its premiere the work was shown as a Scratch performance as part of BAC's Reasons For Living Burst festival in May 2009, and as an informal text reading as part of Fierce Festival's 2nd Interrobang (Relationships) in September 2010. This piece will be shown at various venues in the UK (and beyond) from 2012 onwards.

The piece is a meditation on farewells, departures, long journeys and “the hunt” - for a better life, a better love, a place to drop anchor or a space to claim as one's own. Thematically the work explores Sheila's personal relationship to empire, colonialism, travel and love and more broadly tries to uncover the links that might exist between “the heritage of the human past and the life of a personal psyche”.

What happens in the work?
Sheila inhabits the piece as a kind of hostess or magician, and delivers repetitive poetic text whilst manipulating objects/liquids, dead rats and flowers in front of the audience. The story she is trying to untangle explores her personal relationship to Empire, colonialism and love. The piece also includes live-feed video and sound, with lighting design by Martin Langthorne.

Writing/Reviews (A selection):
This is Tomorrow Review: http://www.thisistomorrow.info/viewArticle.aspx?artId=731
Total Theatre Review of Fierce! Vol 23 Issue 03