OUR CARNAL HEARTS - Rachel Mars' New Show Embarks on a UK Tour
Welcome to the ugly bits of ourselves that we never, normally, admit.
Rachel Mars wants to know what you envy. Why is envy shameful and how have we been transformed by the competitive social and political systems we live in? Our Carnal Hearts asks how we cope in a social media whirl of comparison, and where might we be headed as a society.
Provocative, cathartic and very funny Our Carnal Hearts holds up a brutal mirror to cast ourselves into as Rachel Mars and four female singers explore envy and competition across money, status, career, sex and family.
Here's to selfishness. To secretly choosing the bigger slice, even among your friends and family; to imagining accidents; to stealing other people's ideas and telling yourself you were just inspired by them.
As collectivism moves ever more towards individualism, inequality becomes more pronounced and the Brexit vote reveals the extent of disquiet in the UK, we are all looking at people who are like us... but a little bit better.
With original music that draws on the US Southern gospel tradition of sacred harp singing - where four singers perform in a square formation creating a wall of sound - Our Carnal Hearts reveals what lurks in the dark, exposes the monsters within and without and joyfully embraces our rage at the situation our political landscape has left us in. Developed as part of the Royal Court Tottenham season last year, the show opened at the Fusebox Festival, Austin and is now touring the UK.
On the project Rachel Mars said: "I've been obsessed with the state of envy across the personal and the political for the past few years. It remains a shamefully taboo emotion. With Our Carnal Hearts I want to ride our current - very perfect - [shit]storm of envy: a culmination of fears of scarcity, isolation born from technology, the move from collectivism to individualism and status anxiety derived from consumerism."
'A glorious ode to our fucked up times', Ari Barbarnell, A.R.T, Boston.
Our Carnal Hearts travels with fast-and-dirty pop-up choir project Sing It! Spirit of Envy!, which forms a new local choir for each performance, singing a list of the participants' envies. In singing the unspeakable, the piece disrupts the individualism and solo nature of envy with [the illusion of] a community of harmonious voices. At certain dates there will be performances of Sing It! Spirit of Envy! (full details below). You can listen to a feature about this piece on BBC Radio 4 Extra: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05sz8z7
Videos
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Reuben Solo - Someone In This Crowd Will Betray Me The Limelight 2 (9/04-9/04) |
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Dance Me To The End Of Love Battersea Arts Centre (5/16-5/16) |
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Who Do They Think They Are? Leconfield Hall (6/13-6/13) |
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HUMANITY'S LAST BREATH at O2 Academy Islington - London O2 Academy Islington (10/08-10/08) |
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A Concert of Folksongs and Fables The Grand Hall (6/27-6/27) |
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CHEZ KANE at The Underworld - London On May 24, 2026 The Underworld (5/24-5/24) |
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City Splash Festival Brockwell Park (5/25-5/25) |
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Blisteringly Authentic Police Tribute: The Polis set to Return to The Forum, Darlington this Summer! The Forum Music Studios (6/20-6/20) |
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KAMELOT at O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire - London O2 Shepherd's Bush Empire (11/01-11/01) |
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BLAZE BAYLEY at The Underworld - London The Underworld (12/12-12/12) |
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