As part of the Manchester International Festival 2025, from 10-13 July, Juliet Ellis’s new film and installation, titled A Symphony of Flesh and Bones, will be showing in the South Warehouse. As an interdisciplinary artist who has worked with film, theatre, and performance art, Ellis’s latest work combines all of these elements to create an immersive and surreal exploration of the intersection between the mind, body, and self. At the centre of A Symphony of Flesh and Bones are two of Ellis’s close relatives - her father Lloyd (fondly known as ‘Lloydie’ by the bodybuilding community) a natural bodybuilding world champion, and her brother Anthony, a former cage fighter. The live subject of the performance is Ellis herself, who self describes as “the conductor, creating a symphony of environment, sound, visuals, and fragmented text.” Through this deeply personal and intimate narrative, Ellis encourages us to look introspectively upon our own bodies and selfhood and to question the relationship between impermanence and aging. We sat down with her to chat about her motivations for the project.

What was it like making work that centred your family members? Why did you decide to make a piece about your father’s and brother’s experiences?

The piece is a spiritual, philosophical inquiry into the body, self, and mind. I channelled my father and brother’s bodies, and the reasons for their construction, to emphasise how we can deconstruct our relationship to the body, how we impose self on it, and the mind it creates. So, it’s not so much about them as it is using them as a mirror to look at our own relationship to our body, self, and mind, and how it creates a perspective on how we see others.  

I’ve worked with my family before. My niece, Kady, was in a performance I created when I was a resident artist at the then Greenroom in Manchester. My brother Antony was the lead in my short film Blue. I’ve always wanted to do something with my father and capture his image on film. It’s a disorienting feeling, because I have a strong desire to protect them whilst also taking creative risks in the work and venturing into discomfort. I feel nervous about revealing truths about them and myself, but it's exciting too. I feel I am somehow breaking new ground for myself and pushing expectations, especially when we are working with someone like Cesc, an internationally renowned choreographer who has worked with legends like Mikhail Baryshnikov. The process unearthed exchanges that were gentle, painful, a little awkward, but always honest. My father and brother bring a sense of authenticity that isn’t performative. They just can’t lie in front of the camera, which is beautiful. What struck me was how the more I worked with them, the less I felt I knew them. It was like I was seeing them anew every time, which was sublime.

 How did the creative process and development of A Symphony of Flesh and Bones differ from the process behind some of your other films, like your first feature film, Ruby?

Well, with this piece I am working with Manchester International Festival, which commissioned it, meaning I have money and support. It’s definitely a different way of working when you don’t have to raise the money yourself like I did for Ruby, which had me hustling my way through. But as with both works, the initial idea is something that forms in your imagination, whether that's an image, words, or a question… The inquiry is something that gets under your skin and completely takes over your thoughts. That energy carries you through the process until you finally create something that responds to it.