Hi, I am Briony O’Callaghan and I am co-artistic director of Manchester and London based theatre company Hot Salt Theatre.
In 2009 a woman named Ellie Rose decided to start her own company, and I found myself auditioning for her. Subsequently we have both written, directed and acted in three self made productions at The Lowry Studio in Salford, along with lots of other talented men and women that became involved, and are very proud to call ourselves a feminist theatre company.
The stigma surrounding the word feminist I feel plays a huge role in the undermining of equal rights issues. Phrases such as ”I’m not a feminist, but….” are widely prevalent, along with the common misconception that to be a feminist you absolutely must be a hairy lesbian man hater. This false image has been deliberately spread by media, beauty industries and anyone who sees feminism as a threat. After all, what would the beauty industries do if women stopped questioning themselves and their bodies? Stopped seeking solutions to the problems created by the beauty industries in the first place? Our work surrounds the war of social media upon the way in which women are viewed, and the way in which they view themselves. We aim to examine the old slogan ’Your body is a battlefield’ and discover it’s relevance now, to today’s western culture of popular raunch, plastic surgery and the porn industry versus woman as object in a different sense, covered and hidden away, the proliferation of the myth ’flesh is sin’ and the destruction of this flesh in the varying and ever-changing butcheries of war.
Our greatest aim is to create beautifully-crafted, visceral theatre. This is our ongoing deed.