Vikki started performing movement and flow arts with UV light and fire in the 1990’s for raves and events. Since then, she has successfully run a dual career, continuing to perform as a dancer and circus skills artist for events with musicians and within multi media art collaborations. More recently she set up her freelance company, Scarlets’ Adventures, continues to work in black light and fire, but has expanded her movement adventures to include interactive clowning character walkabouts and cabaret acts with LED circus props and acrobatic grotesque burlesque. On the occasions when her feet stand still, she can be found relaxing in her off grid cabin in Welsh woodland or watching horizons change on her local beach.
www.instagram.com/scarletsadventures
01/10/2025, 20:20 - Finbarre: All ready to go! Let me know when you’re about - it is almost Tarot DMs time
01/10/2025, 20:22 - Vikki: Hello Fin Tarot Master! I’m as ready to go as I can be
01/10/2025, 20:24 - Finbarre: Fin TAROT MASTER? It’s like you’ve met me! You’re too kind - how is your evening so far?
01/10/2025, 20:25 - Vikki: My evening is warm! Sliding into winter where my cabin needs some heat but not a raging fire
01/10/2025, 20:26 - Finbarre:
Don’t slide into winter just yet. Otherwise, you’ll go straight through autumn! And as we all know, that is by far the best month. How’s the cabin tonight? And could you describe it very quickly before we start dealing some cards?
01/10/2025, 20:26 - Vikki:
Of course. My cabin is deep in the woods with a tin roof under an oak tree. So at the moment, my cabin has lots of plip-plop sounds as the acorns fall off the trees and scurrying sounds, which thankfully aren’t rats. During the day, it’s squirrels running up and down, trying to eat all the acorns. So it’s fairly noisy in the day, but very, very quiet at night with a tiny bit of moonlight coming to the trees.
01/10/2025, 20:27 - Finbarre:
I am supremely jealous. That sounds relaxingly percussive and enchanting at the same time.
01/10/2025, 20:28 - Vikki:
I am extremely fortunate to live just down a footpath and not be under any streetlights. But the downside is when it’s very cold and wet and I have to wade through mud before I can even get to a pavement. And chop my wood when I want to just curl up somewhere warm.
01/10/2025, 20:31 - Finbarre:
It just so happens on Tarot DMs that occasionally I like to change the cards that we use. And the deck that I have in mind for this evening very much matches your location. So as you’re out in the wild woods, I thought I would choose the Wild Unknown Tarot, which are quite minimalist in style. They are striking and they have imagery I hope would appeal to you. So Vicky, thank you so much for joining me in this frivolous nonsense where we pull some cards and talk about this and that.
Now, could you just describe briefly some of the things that you do, some of the projects that you’re working with?
01/10/2025, 20:32 - Finbarre: For flavour, these are The Wild Unknown cards by Kim Krans - https://kimkrans.com/the-wild-unknown
01/10/2025, 20:32 - Vikki:
Yes. So I run a dual career. So one half of my life is undertaking quite important or serious research around social inclusion. And the other part of my life is being a movement artist. And speaking with you, I focus on the movement artist work that I do. And we will find out more as our interview progresses, I think.
01/10/2025, 20:33 - Vikki: Lovely imagery on the cards!
01/10/2025, 20:34 - Finbarre: It is DEVIL SEASON on Tarot DMs leading up to the spookiest day of the year so the first card I’ll present to you that everyone gets at the moment is this one....
01/10/2025, 20:35 - Finbarre:
01/10/2025, 20:35 - Finbarre: With hot little hoofies there!
01/10/2025, 20:36 - Vikki:
It straight away reminds me of Jezabel my fire demon character
01/10/2025, 20:38 - Finbarre:
Well, this is often a card of confronting those inner demons, right? The things that hold you back. The cage that we place around ourselves, but it’s also a card of temptation and desire and the darker aspects of the human psyche. You mentioned there that you have Jezebel, your fire demon. So while I’m just thinking of a question for you, could you describe it to me? What inspired that?
01/10/2025, 20:40 - Vikki:
Jezabel was inspired by an element of taking control, putting people on the spot, challenging. But not in a… Finding the edge so that you can be challenging without being offensive so that you can challenge in a playful way. And for me, it’s very much around being devilish. In its full meaning of the word, playing tricks, goading. And she is a character that, with the fire, fans will often run towards an audience. Obviously with full fire safety things born in mind. She challenges what it might be to be safe. Incorporating dance and movement with fire. She was inspired by, really trickery. Firework is just tricks. And much of circus and performance is about playing games, having trickery, creating illusions.
01/10/2025, 20:43 - Vikki:
In terms of desire and challenge in my work, I have a different character Miss Scarlet who presents challenge and desire simultaneously. But I may be jumping ahead, so apologies for butting into your question
01/10/2025, 20:43 - Finbarre: An element of your costume that catches my eye immediately are the chains that resemble a monstrous skeleton around you. Right, I know what I’ll ask...
01/10/2025, 20:44 - Finbarre:
As The Devil card is fundamentally one of desires. Is performing in front of people addictive?
01/10/2025, 20:45 - Vikki:
To an extent, but I think the addictive part for me is actually about broadcasting the message I want to give or the challenge that I want to give and having the opportunity to do that in a way that might grab attention more than, for example, a political speech or deep discussions on social media. There is something immediate about performing that has content behind it. And I don’t mean that to belittle performing, that is art in itself because I do that as well. But there is something addictive about it. I want to get this across. I want to challenge. That part is highly addictive.
01/10/2025, 20:47 - Vikki:
And on the back of that, I would add, particularly with Miss Scarlet, where I’m taking my clothes off. I have a full room in front of me watching me strip. And there is that element of saying to your crowd “Desire me, look at me” And at the same time, I have words written on me that will make the audience really uncomfortable. And presenting that with all eyes on me is also really addictive.
01/10/2025, 20:49 - Finbarre:
Which of these two situations to you would be the sign of a great night? Would it be rapturous applause with a standing ovation? Or would it be utterly stunned silence?
01/10/2025, 20:50 - Vikki:
I think I want both. I actually had recently, when I was performing two weeks ago, Miss Scarlet has an act called The Mother of Harlots, and it involves stripping to Gregorian chant and medieval choral music. And some people in my audience were clearly in silence. They just didn’t know what to do, what to say. And others absolutely loved it. So that was great. I think both. And that shows also an authentic response because different people will respond in different ways. And if you can elicit that and not just have... a round of applause simply because other people in the room are applauding and that’s what people do. If you can have different reactions, then that is the end of a really good night.
01/10/2025, 20:51 - Finbarre:
So whatever it is, it has to be the complete opposite of a polite smattering.
01/10/2025, 20:52 - Vikki:
Yes, I don’t want polite. Other people can do polite. It’s not what I’m about. It’s not what I present. Even my family-friendly clown acts are fairly impolite. So one of my clowns is a badly behaved ginger cat called Ginger Nut. So I never want to do polite. We’ve got enough polite in our world. Give me authentic. Give me messy. Give me challenge. Give me the bizarre and surreal. That’s where I want to focus my attention.
01/10/2025, 20:53 - Vikki:
01/10/2025, 20:53 - Vikki: Gingernut
01/10/2025, 20:54 - Finbarre:
Before we move on to the next card, I need to ask, how does Gingernut interact with people?
01/10/2025, 20:55 - Vikki:
Gingernut does everything that a house cat does. So, well, a badly behaved house cat. So, Gingernut will walk over tables. Gingernut will... sidle along people’s legs and obviously work out whether it’s okay, but kind of put a paw up and see if people will interact. If people want to interact, Gingernut will throw toy mice at walkers. It’s a walkabout show, so it’s not on a stage. So I’m walking about with the audience. And people often get involved in two-person juggling with me, where they’re involved in throwing my mice toys back at me. It often winds up that people feed Gingernut food, i.e. have been curled up on a bench with people having picnics or having a pint in an evening curled up next to them as Gingernut… and Gingernut sleeps in really awkward positions that people can laugh at. So pretty much just what a badly behaved housecat does.
01/10/2025, 20:56 - Finbarre: I have your deck in my hands for the wild card and I’m ready to shuffle, until you write or say stop. When the moment feels right let me know.
01/10/2025, 20:57 - Vikki: Stop
01/10/2025, 20:57 - Finbarre:
Again on a cat theme.
01/10/2025, 20:57 - Finbarre:
01/10/2025, 20:58 - Vikki: A magnificent moggy!!
01/10/2025, 21:00 - Vikki:
As a person, I find that completely relatable in terms of, I call it “queen energy”. It’s not having to sound off just because you might feel like you want to. It’s about having strength in holding back. Really value keeping my dignity even if people are trying to provoke me to lose it. Doesn’t mean that I don’t get angry, doesn’t mean that I don’t have those shadow parts of myself, but how I express those and how I communicate those emotions is very, very important to me.
01/10/2025, 21:02 - Finbarre:
Perfect. And that’s exactly the kind of thing I’d like to ask you for your second question. How do you balance the demands of physical exertion with emotional resilience in your performance?
01/10/2025, 21:02 - Vikki:
I would also add with regards to resilience, it’s only recently that I’ve returned to performing. And it’s on the back of having had, first of all, a back injury that took me out of performing. Then I had to get myself fit again. And just as I was fit, I then had a head injury that set me back. And I was off work completely for about four or five months. That does relate to my performance work. I’m now in my fifties and to return to performing at that age is quite unusual. It takes courage and confidence and a level of inner knowledge.
01/10/2025, 21:02 - Vikki:
And by inner knowledge, I mean an understanding of myself, knowing where my strengths are, but also knowing where my weaknesses are so that I can get on with it.
01/10/2025, 21:04 - Finbarre:
That has tickled me. You answered my question perfectly before I’d even asked it.
01/10/2025, 21:04 - Finbarre: I’m just too darn predictable!
01/10/2025, 21:04 - Vikki:
In answer to your question regarding the physical strain of performing and emotional resilience. I think it is about knowing what my strengths are and what my weaknesses are. And making sure that I devise my own acts. So making sure that I might have one or two moves that are strenuous on me. But they’re not going to be so strenuous throughout my act that I’m worried about them. That it puts a strain on my body. In terms of the emotional part, there are some of my acts that I do have an emotional response to. So there’s one in particular I’m thinking of that’s called Creature of the Shadows that is about the discrimination that queer people in Wales experience. And the physical exertion in that show is actually quite low, but the emotional content of it. It weighs heavy. And one of the ways I counteract that is that particular act has LED lights. And so I use light to almost lighten the script and the words and the nature of the act.
01/10/2025, 21:05 - Vikki:
01/10/2025, 21:07 - Finbarre:
After doing something like that, how do you give yourself the emotional aftercare that you need?
01/10/2025, 21:08 - Vikki:
The acts that I’ve been talking about are alongside other performers. And I find the value of being with fellow performers. Particularly those who are also artists and commenting on discrimination issues and equity issues. Being with them is the best aftercare you can have. Having my fellow performers’ encouragement and their support in their dressing rooms is the aftercare. And I would also add making sure that I drink a lot of water because it is really exhausting and it’s often you can come off, you want to flop and have this kind of recovery moment. And remembering to hydrate at that point is really important!
01/10/2025, 21:12 - Vikki: I also remind myself that this is why I do this work. Its genuinely serious play!
01/10/2025, 21:13 - Finbarre:
Vikki, I don’t know how this happened, but somehow we’re on the last card. And this one was picked a little earlier today by a previous interviewee called Leigh Alexander. The Father of Cups or the King of Cups was picked. Now this particular card is shown as a swan - I’ll just show you the picture.
01/10/2025, 21:13 - Finbarre:
01/10/2025, 21:14 - Vikki: Beautiful black swan- the dark side in Swan lake ... but tell me a little about the card before I go off on a ballet theme 😆
01/10/2025, 21:16 - Finbarre:
Two things on that. The first one is I’ve not seen the film Black Swan yet, and I really need to. And the other is I happen to be of an age where along with quicksand, swans were my nemesis. I was petrified of them because of course, at a young age, somebody tells you they can break your arm. So you assume that they will. But they will target you and go “Right, right. It’s snapping time!” But of course, I have never had any trouble with swans. I say that I’m probably going to get mobbed by them tomorrow! Hmm, which questions for you…. No, actually. Before I do that, let me just guide you through what the card represents.
In case you’ve not seen it before: it’s one of wisdom and compassion and nurturing leadership, perhaps. It’s either you or somebody else in your life being a skilled mentor or healer, and it’s leading with your heart.
01/10/2025, 21:20 - Vikki:
Compassion costs nothing. It’s not hard. It’s just a way of being. Increasingly is missing from interactions I feel that people have, and in political discourse. Compassion for fellow performers. Often there’s an attitude that someone needs this really high skill level and someone with the higher skill is a better, somehow a better performer. or a better person than the person that doesn’t have that skill. All of those ways of thinking lack compassion. To me, a good performer is the person who stands up and puts their act together and presents themselves from the heart in the way that makes sense to them, given the skills they have, given the confidence they have and as a fellow supporter I will only ever support people to do that - so I think compassion is really important. I suppose with a mentor, I look for people to mentor me. It is not to learn skill from… to learn the subtleties of art of performing. The way of coming across, the way of presenting yourself, the way of presenting ideas. Having the confidence to be vulnerable. I need mentors to help me do that. And I can also help mentor other people to do that. So I think it’s a really strong within the way in which I approach. It’s also a team. We work as a team. If I’m working in with a group of performers, it’s not a competition. It’s about all being together to create an expression and a piece of art for people to watch in and we can enjoy, provoke curiosity, provoke laughter, provoke tears, but we’re working together on that if you’re working with other people. And it relies on compassion, on mutual mercy.
01/10/2025, 21:22 - Vikki:
I say that, but I also really admire people that have amazing skill levels. I have a handstand teacher who used to be a performer with Cirque du Soleil and I completely admire them, completely admire them. Their skill is immense. It’s about not pitching that person against another performer that’s maybe just starting out, just coming onto the cabaret circuit. So I think that to me is what’s important and what I’m trying to get at with regards to cooperation rather than competing in performance.
01/10/2025, 21:24 - Vikki:
And I say all that, I can’t believe I forgot the... I volunteer in a social circus for children and young people. And I was a founder member way back in 1992 and supported its set up and have been involved ever since. And I think the role of social circus, the same as theatre, community theatre, those aspects for children and young people to be able to express themselves and the role of volunteering in that is incredibly important to me.
01/10/2025, 21:27 - Finbarre:
Cirque du Soleil, I miss that place dearly. In the early 2000s, goodness, we’re looking at about 2004? I was working with Cirque du Soleil when they were doing their UK tour. I think it was Saltimbanco… I’ve pronounced that terribly wrong. I might even have the date wrong, so I think it’s about 2004. And I was basically a general assistant. I was a gopher. I would do all of the odd jobs that needed doing. And on an evening, I would go out and relax with the performers. They would go out and... Goodness, they would party like beasts until the small hours of the morning. They were unstoppable. And they have, obviously, stamina way beyond the average human. Great times. And yes, I very much enjoyed working with Cirque du Soleil.
You’ve got me thinking after the wonderful answer that you gave. When you’re performing, and obviously you must be very confident and skilled. How do you convey vulnerability in your performance?
01/10/2025, 21:31 - Vikki:
Partly from me through movement. So, for example, in my acts with Miss Scarlet, there are points where I am just standing on the stage with my arms outwards like a crucifix type pose. And I have words written on me that are quite derogatory and I’m just standing naked. I don’t use nipple tassels. I don’t have full underwear or what’s considered, I’m just wearing a pair of plain black gym knickers. There’s a level, a huge level of vulnerability in that. And the words that are written on me, Mother of Harlots, is words from Old Testament. So across my torso, I have Whore of Babylon written on me. I have brazen, immoral. Those kinds of words. My other act has more, more derogatory words than that. So that’s vulnerable. I think my my Creatures act is all about vulnerability. It’s about feeling like you have to hide in the shadows as a queer person. Always being afraid of someone putting you in the spotlight and outing you without expecting it. So in itself, the movement involves masks to begin with and very awkward angular, non-human type movements that is about the experience of feeling out of place, living in a heteronormative world.
So those kinds of things, are incredibly vulnerable that may be portrayed physically rather than in speech.
01/10/2025, 21:36 - Finbarre:
Thank you so much for sharing that and for dancing us through your world of characters in Tarot DMs tonight, Vicky. Before you go... I do have a favour to ask. Every time I interview somebody, I ask them to leave a gift in the form of a tarot card for the next person I speak to. This would be any card you wish if you happen to have a deck with you. To take one from the deck. If you don’t, if there’s a particular card, mood or vibe you’d like to present to the next person… So if you are feeling mischievous, you might even go for something like, I don’t Death or The Tower or The Hanged Man to get them really thinking. The famous ones. If you wanted to learn more about their mysteries, you might go into the High Priestess. Is there any card, or any archetype that comes to mind, and I’ll make sure the next person is asked.
01/10/2025, 21:37 - Vikki: Princess of Wands!
01/10/2025, 21:38 - Vikki:
Thank you for having me on Tarot DMs. It’s been really fun! Thank you for giving me the space to talk about my work and news around some of the deeper issues around performing. It’s been a really lovely experience.