A clown. A bucket. A deep, deep dive
Bucket
The Holy
This is my story. But it is not just my story — it belongs to Myrtle, my great-grandmother, and to her mother Maryann, and to every woman in the line whose story lives on in the body.
A clown. A bucket. A deep, deep dive.
The Holy Bucket is a multidisciplinary solo performance weaving together clown, mask, storytelling, underwater film, and shadow theatre. The work emerged from creator Melissa Aston’s struggle with menopause, a time that unravelled her sense of self and led her to develop a personal creative practice called the Bucket Sessions. Through these improvised journeys into the bucket, characters, images, stories, and ancestral connections began to surface, becoming the foundation of the performance.
At the heart of the piece is a simple janitor’s bucket—both an everyday object and a portal—through which the clown custodian embarks on a journey. As she slips between liminal worlds, strange and familiar figures emerge, inviting her into an unexpected exploration of memory, lineage, and transformation.