Bristol Baby Choir Joins Niplash On Stage At Tobacco Factory Theatres
The homecoming date will be a big event for the show’s Bristol creator
A Bristol choir of parents with their babies will be taking to the stage as part of a show coming to Tobacco Factory Theatres.
Bristol’s BYOB Choir (Bring Your Own Baby) will be performing in Karla Shacklock’s show Niplash.
The Bristol BYOB Choir is a choir that is aimed at parents with their young babies and toddlers up to the age of 5 years of age. The weekly sessions aim to be relaxing and sociable as much as being an opportunity for singing.
The performance is a combined participatory arts and social activism project to ask why there is a crisis around infant feeding. UNICEF UK has found that the UK has the lowest rate of breastfeeding in the world.
Just 01 per cent of women are continuing to exclusively breastfeed at 6 months.
Niplash explores how young children are being fed, with no one way being placed in a position of importance above another. The project is inclusive of breast, chest and formula feeding.
Karla is a Bristol based mother who works as a performer, choreographer, movement director, lecturer, writer, facilitator and mentor.
She has been making and touring her own work as well as creating work with others across the creative spectrum.
The Bristol performance is the final date of her UK tour marking a homecoming event for the show, which is selling fast.
The show will be a part memoir and part cultural commentary looking at the mixed messages, emotional difficulties and societal pressures around infant feeding. It will give a voice to mothers who are often shamed and often quietly struggling.
The show features real feeding paraphernalia and includes personal stories donated by mothers across the UK, to create a ‘living archive of care, chaos, and resistance’.
Parents and carers will be able to donate any unwanted/unrecyclable feeding paraphernalia to be repurposed in the show or a giant lactivist flag which will be flown on theatre venues next year.
Plans are being made to extend Niplash across the country into five large scale weekender events. These will offer an opportunity for activism as well as performances, exhibitions and installations.
Niplash will be at Tobacco Factory Theatres on 20 October 2026
For more information or to book, visit: https://tobaccofactorytheatres.com/shows/niplash/
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