If idiosyncratic is what you’re after, look no further than Stacy Makishi. Self-proclaimed ‘transplant from Hawaii who found paradise in Dalston’, she started out in comedy and then made a transfer to performance, a field in which she is very much a household name. You can always expect the unexpected from Makishi - her practice spans over live and video art, poetry and installation; to the performance insiders she is also known for the highly-praised ‘unblocking creativity’ workshops.

Makishi’s new show, The Falsettos, very much  continues her own tradition. Influenced by The Sopranos, ET and Barbara Streisand in On A Clear DayYou Can See Forever, it’s also a sequel to The Making Of Bull: The True Story - a piece which in turn was tagged as a riff on Fargo. Amazingly, this diverse bag of pop classics quickly evokes common topics, black humour and lots and lots of blood being perhaps the most obvious ones. Both shows are part of this year’s Sacred season at Chelsea Theatre; ahead of the short run Makishi talks to us about 5 foot tall mobsters, devising in her sleep and proverbial bag ladies.

Run-Riot: Let’s start with the obvious: what do Sopranos, ET and On A Clear Day You Can See Forever have in common? How did they all end up in one show?

Stacy Makishi: I’m addicted to pop culture and enjoy imagining someone like me inhabiting these stories. I want to penetrate those celluloid walls and to tell my story with a backing cast of Tony Soprano, Barbra Streisand and ET. Live art gives me a form to do so.  All three references have a kind of ‘impossible love’ attached to them… A long distance love, or a love that must be left for another time and space… a love where one wants to do the right thing but fails time and time again.

Run-Riot: Falsettos is tagged as a loose sequel of The Making Of Bull: The True Story. How do the two pieces interact?

Stacy Makishi: The two shows are mysteries. There’s murder and ‘something missing’. The process of making both shows were mysteries in themselves. If I told you the true story of the Making of the Falsettos, you wouldn’t believe me. The ending came to me in a dream 10 days ago. It’s an extraordinary ending, you must see it to believe it. I’m still pinching myself every day.

Run-Riot: Sequels invite comparison, of previous and new work, past and present. Is there an element of intentionally risking failure in asking for the two to be weighed against each other? What are the connotations you wanted to explore in creating a sequel?

Stacy Makishi: My show is a sequel and it does express the horror of ‘living up’ to 'expectations'. How does an artist resist gimmicks or formulae while at the same time remain true to ones own 'artistic signature'? The show is all about failed expectations. But it’s also about great hope.

Run-Riot: Live art relies on the ‘real’ - from real experiences to real blood, sweat and tears, while pop-culture is very much the opposite, and embraces the ‘fake’. What happens when you take from the ‘fake; to make the ‘real’  - what does this contrast inspire?

Stacy Makishi: I suppose that’s what these two shows try to explore. When I started off to make both shows, I had no idea that this would end up being about me. Seriously! I started off with an obsession. Then I found a fascinating true newspaper story that led me to a mystery. Then before you know it, it’s my life that’s being cross-examined and part of the crime scene. How did that happen? It’s interesting how in art, you can always see bullshit. An artist can see when an artist is the ‘real deal’, like Ron Athey, or an imitation of Ron.  Even if there’s real blood on stage! You can see when a person is using risk as a diversion from revealing something real. I’m interested in fake and real. How does one use theatre/artifice to tell the truth?

While we were in the process of creating this piece, no one ever knew when I was being real or fake, not even myself. It was a very scary process and even now, I sometimes don’t know what’s real.

Run-Riot: As an artist working in less mainstream forms, are you interested in mechanisms popular culture employs to get to the proverbial masses?

Stacy Makishi: What I enjoy is using references that are mainstream to tell a story in my own fragmented-nonlinear way. You won’t see a person like me starring in the Sopranos. Can you imagine a 5ft tall woman from Honolulu whacking a gang of mobsters? And why not? You have no idea how scary I really am. Tony has nothing on me.

Run-Riot: You marked your 50th birthday by starting a blog, in which you proclaimed yourself a bag lady, promising to chronicle the life of a ‘senior’ artist, and raising interesting questions about growing old in the arts. Is further development of this online project in the pipeline?

Stacy Makishi: Yes, I’m working with a film artist called Claire Nolan. We’re going to interview some amazing women and put them up on my blog. I also want to document my own aging process. I want people to know who this proverbial bag lady really is. When I was just starting off on this journey, people warned me about taking this kind of risk. They said that I would end up destitute, homeless and alone. I know a lot of people who wanted to take the risk, but in the end decided against it for fear of becoming a ‘bag lady’. I want to document my journey as a social experiment and art project. Will I be taken care of somehow or will I end up with a shopping trolley filled with all my belongings and seven cats? My life will either be the ‘warning’ or the ‘happy ending’. Watch this space.

Run-Riot: You often refer to Freud and his notion that ‘love is homesickness’. With this in mind - has making work away from home been an influence on your practice or thinking? How do you think this idea resonates through a city like London - filled with people removed from their original contexts?

Stacy Makishi: I think all artists need to feel that sense of longing in order to create. They need to feel driven by a desire for elsewhere in order to move forward with the work. It hurts and feels good all at the same time. I guess that’s what the word passion means, suffering. I am always yearning to go home, but even while I’m there, I’m lonely. I long to go somewhere even more familiar than home…at the same time some place completely foreign.

Run-Riot: You shy away from placing a single label on your interdisciplinary practice. Are there any specific obstacles for artists refusing to ‘pigeon-hole’ themselves into a genre or tradition?

Stacy Makishi: I like to remain a beginner at what I do. Perhaps it’s to do with 'expectations' or the fear of having something become “too known”. I’m not concerned about genre or tradition. I just try very hard to listen to the work itself….To pay close attention to what it’s telling me …as it makes itself known to me. It defines its own form, shape and expression. I just show up and try not to get in its way.

Run-Riot: The run at the Chelsea Theatre is followed by a Extra! Extra! Read All About It!, a one-on-one performance for The End of the Pier festival. What can we expect from the mix of psychic intervention and poetic pondering?

Stacy Makishi: Come check me out at the End of the Pier, that intervention will be all about you!

The Falsettos

24th -25th May

Chelsea Theatre - part of the Sacred season

Info and Tickets

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

1st June

The End of the Pier

Mayton Street Festival

Info