WRESTLELADSWRESTLE

Created by Jennifer Jackson Company

Battersea Arts Centre, 2025

WRESTLELADSWRESTLE, 2025

WRESTLELADSWRESTLE explosively combines theatre, dance, judo and pro-wrestling into a

battleground of joy and reclamation.

Inspired by her Bolivian mother, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and entertainment wrestling, Jenni confronts and reimagines a racist incident she witnessed her mother endure when she was a child.

Drawing on her real-life teenage career as the under 50kg British Judo Champion, the performance brings together an almighty Girl Gang from the local area to join her in this ambitious and exhilarating theatrical event

The Girl Gang Wrestle (Hot Flash verses Brixton Bruja)

WRESTLING AND COLLABORATION - WE ARE SO MUCH MORE

THAN ONE

INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY

Hosted by Subjectivity and Feminism

at Chelsea College of Arts March 11th 2025

My name is Sasha Bowles

I am an under 60 moderately fit female visual artist.

When I was a kid. Every Saturday afternoon they showed Men’s wrestling on the Telly. Enormous men with pantomime names like Big Daddy, Hulk Hogan, Kendo Nagasaki and Giant Haystacks would grapple, body slam and throw each other around a wrestling ring in ridiculous costumes.

They put on a tremendous show of gymnastics and theatrics – with great yells of agony, grunts and sounds of raw flesh slamming on the floor.

It was a highly male testosterone fuelled space. The audience would cheer, boo, chant and be exhilarated by the apparent brutality of the show.

My name is Sasha Bowles

I am an under 60 moderately fit female visual artist, whose practice plays with ideas of façade and fakery, predominately through the building of large scale theatrical installations.

I have never thought of myself as a performer and have always expressed myself through the making of things.

Last year however my practice expanded through collaboration with artist Laura Moreton-Griffiths, and we performed at comedy skit together at The Colony Room.

My name is Sasha Bowles

I am an under 60 moderately fit female visual and….NOW Performance artist.

I see an advert.

WOMEN OF ALL AGES AND ABILITIES WANTED

TO PERFORM AS WRESTLERS FOR A THEATRICAL PRODUCTION

I reply immediately. “Yes Please. When can I start?”

So now I am a wrestler rehearsing for Wrestle Lads Wrestle, created by the fabulous Jenni Jackson. And last week we performed for 5 nights at the Battersea Arts Centre.

22 women from all over London, all ages, nationalities, shapes and sizes, also decided they wanted to be wrestlers.

We learnt Judo throws, self-defence, how to throw ourselves upon each other. We pummelled, pounded, grappled, sprung off trampolines and sweated. We felt each other’s breath upon each other. And formed ourselves into a Glorious Girl Gang accompanied by the fearsome drumming from Issy Odelola.

Jenni Jackson the under 50kg British Judo Champion and narrated a story inspired by her Bolivian mother, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bolivian Cholita Wrestling and her real life Judo career.

Her starting point is revisiting a racial incident she witnessed against her mother as a child. Jenni recalls her fearful mother trying to make herself very small, and How no-one did anything. No-One DID Anything. The show she builds burns with a determination to help women stand tall.

And boy did she help to make these 22 women stand tall. And all the women enabled each other to stand tall.

We spent days learning how to come together, to feel each other’s presence, and to take up our own space. It was about collaboration from the start. It was a coming together of women for a common cause.

Over the final days of rehearsal we had to come up with our wrestling name and decide upon a costume that embodied this. We choose names such as The Lioness, The Brixton Brohaa, Gentle Giant, The Mighty Egg, Diva, Body Slam…

I donned gold lame trousers, adorned myself in feathers and tied a pair of tights on my head and felt empowered for my trampolining bounce onto the stage.

AS THE HOT FLASH

And what a joy to be a wrestler and hear an audience cheer, chant and be exhilarated.

This was a production about taking up space and being empowered, to be able to breathe out, stand taller and be fully seen.

This show was not fuelled by Testosterone. It was fuelled by a female supportiveness.

BREATHE OUT

TAKE UP SPACE

STAND TALL

TOGETHER!

My name is Sasha Bowles

I am an under 60 slightly fitter, visual AND performance Artist

AND – WRESTLER

AKA