Attributes
Threshold is a new monthly evening of performance at Chapter, curated by and featuring artists based in or connected to Wales, who are invited to contribute new/raw/unfinished performance in the spirit of play, exploration and exchange across disciplines. Threshold is an entry point, a meeting place, and a boundary between practices/perspectives that we invite artists to cross.
Threshold: Public Bodies curated by Rhys Slade Jones interrogates what it means to be publicly queer, and what public space means to queers.
With performances from Kath Ashill, Nessa, Chris White, and Rhys Slade Jones.
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About the artists
Rhys Slade Jones is an interdisciplinary artist hailing from Treherbert, living and working in South Wales. Walking the line between the convivial and the confrontational, Rhys creates political work that straddles the worlds of cabaret, performance, and craft.
At its core, Rhys’s work explores community, history, and power, consistently questioning the global systems we are all entangled in. They use performance to investigate the relationship between their own body, the landscape, and the materials found within it, making objects and costumes that allow for the inhabitation of different characters in front of an audience. Their practice seeks to hold space for silliness, fun, and absurdity—an often difficult but intentional act. Their work is a meditation on queer ecologies, the limitless exuberance of queer raves, and the inherently political nature of joy, all of which are complicated by a simultaneous awareness of environmental catastrophe and collective lament.
Recently, Rhys has been researching the slag tips of the Rhondda—discarded and unwanted environments—examining the power and danger found in slippage and waste. They are particularly interested in the concept of “slag” as a metaphor: the leftover material, the discarded and overlooked.
Rhys is the recipient of the COMMON Award and the Jerwood Live Work Fund (2021), and has created work with National Theatre Wales, Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru, and The Pleasance. Rhys is currently Artist in Service for Rhondda Cynon Taf County borough Council, was a 2022 Future Wales Fellow with the Arts Council of Wales, and is a founding member of the queer Welsh performance collective CWM RAG.
Kath Ashill
Live performance, video and installation present Ashill’s personal experiences of lived working class identity. The culture clash between the artists background and artistic practice sits in the disjointed narratives within the work. Ashill pursues the theatricality in the everyday whilst sharing fragments of autobiography, observations on people, history and site.
The frequent use of drag in the artist’s work opens up a dialogue about the history of the drag king in contemporary performance, as well as facilitates the exploration of the artists gender identity.
Past work by Ashill has seen them focus on the gender politics and history of the Principal Boy in British pantomime, interspecies relationships in art collaboration and healthcare, a fake cowboy town nestled in the South Wales valleys. Ashill pursues the absurd within the everyday of Welsh life. Queer and Crip theory are at the heart of Ashiil’s work. Theatre flats and the DIY aesthetic of amateur dramatics articulate the materiality of these themes.
Kathryn Ashill completed their PhD at the University of Manchester, where they explored the potential of inter-species collaboration in artwork creation through performance and human healthcare. This research was funded by the Wellcome Trust. Ashill also has a BA Honours in Fine Art (Combined Media) from Swansea Metropolitan University (now University of Wales Trinity St Davids), and has an MFA degree from Glasgow School of Art, and has exhibited work nationally and internationally.
Nessa
Oh! What’s Occrurin’! Wales’ 3rd best Nessa Impersonator and Cwm Rag’s stale smear of regret; Vanessa Shanessa Crossnessa ‘the Crossdresser’ Jenkins will be reluctantly gracing our stage, with a blend of high politics, and below the belt tales! Hold on to your purses and your fellas girl, cos otherwise she’ll have them both! Tidy.
Chris White
Chris White is a poet and performer originally from the Midlands, now based in the South West. With a passion for making poetry which is fun and accessible, Chris has performed his work nationally at festivals and spoken-word nights from Tongue Fu to Latitude.
He regularly makes full-length shows which he’s taken to the Theatre Royal Plymouth, Camden People’s Theatre and Cambridge Junction. In his silly and surreal way, he often talks about class, queerness and identity. He’s won multiple slams, came 3rd in last year's Roundhouse London Slam and is a former Bard of Exeter. He’s also the creator of a regular poetry night called Spork! and has produced and facilitated workshops for adults and younger people.
Times & Tickets
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Thursday 19 June 2025
