Shangri-La Glastonbury 2025: inventive director Kaye Dunnings on discovering magnificence in chaos

Final month, as a fifth of 1,000,000 folks streamed into Glastonbury’s sprawling Worthy Farm, the doorway to Shangri-La radiated with much more power than typical. This 12 months, as we reported dwell, the legendary area felt each acquainted and radically new: a patchwork of contemporary collectives, interactive artwork, and a palpable sense of inclusivity.

Standing on the centre of all of it was inventive director Kaye Dunnings; her imaginative and prescient, as soon as once more, pushing the boundaries of what a pageant surroundings may be.

Shangri-La has all the time been Glastonbury’s wildest playground, however this 12 months, the adjustments had been dramatic. The sector’s structure was reimagined to be much more open and welcoming, with themes of nature and progress evoked by a collection of interactive artwork installations.

As Kaye causes: “Folks come to Glastonbury for extra than simply the headliners. They need to be transported, challenged, welcomed—and for that, now we have to maintain evolving.”

However how does one particular person orchestrate this stage of inventive anarchy at scale? To know the alchemy behind Shangri-La’s transformation, it’s important to begin with Kaye herself.

Early years: surviving, in search of, and subverting

In an trade dominated by middle-class graduates, Kaye’s journey is something however typical. Born within the late Seventies and raised on an property in Totton, close to Southampton, her childhood was marked by adversity.

“My space was actually violent, by no means actually that secure,” she remembers with a grimace. Nobody in her household had been to school; a lot of the ladies had entered motherhood as youngsters. Kaye, although, felt she was destined for one thing totally different.

College was a battleground, the place her creativity and distinctive sense of fashion made her a goal for bullies. “I managed to manage by music,” she says. “The radio was my window onto the world. John Peel, my dad’s data… I realised there was extra on the market.”

She left faculty on the age of 16 and took a job in retail. Even then, Kaye’s intuition was to push boundaries slightly than conform. “Window dressing was the closest factor to set design I might discover,” she laughs. “However my home windows had been all the time too on the market for John Lewis.”

The job itself launched her to inventive folks, nevertheless it was the underground music scene that actually ignited her creativeness. London’s galleries and golf equipment beckoned, and by 18, she was making common pilgrimages to East London, absorbing the work of Tracey Emin, the Chapman Brothers, and the town’s vibrant nightlife.

Discovering her tribe: artwork, music and the ability of DIY

Artwork faculty was out of attain for Kaye: she could not afford the charges, and the federal government was now not offering grants to college students. As a substitute, she snuck into life-drawing courses, discovered work in a homosexual bar, and used costumes as a way of self-expression. “I discovered my tribe within the golf equipment and bars,” she says. “It was all about improvisation. If I wanted one thing, I made it. I did not have anybody to depend on.”

A transfer to Bournemouth, with its vibrant arts scene, proved pivotal. There, she met Robin Collings, her future inventive accomplice, and collectively, they staged occasions, starting with a fundraiser to construct a skate park. It will be her first style of inventive venture administration and neighborhood motion. “We raised cash, constructed the ramp, placed on a pageant,” she remembers with a wistful smile. “It is nonetheless there at present.”

This era set the tone for Kaye’s profession, which is characterised by resourcefulness, collaboration, and a perception that creativity thrives in constraint. “If you do not have cash, you discover one other means,” she insists. “That is the place the magic occurs.”

Glastonbury: the crucible of inventive threat

Kaye’s Glastonbury story started across the flip of the century when she labored with Robin on the stage he created for his uni remaining main venture. It was her first time on the Somerset pageant, and she or he loved performances by big stars like David Bowie and PJ Harvey. “However I used to be extra keen on what was taking place on the fringes,” she remembers. “The bizarre, the immersive, the areas that felt like dwelling for outsiders.”

Two years later, she returned by working as a performer and hostess within the famed Misplaced Vagueness space. In 2003, she created her personal house at Glastonbury: the Laundromat of Love, a tiny tent stuffed with 15 self-created characters parodying Nineteen Fifties housewives, together with washing machines, a magnificence parlour, and “mainly the whole lot I owned”.

It was a haven for introverts, the misplaced, the lonely: a precursor to the unconventional inclusivity that may outline her later work. “I wished someplace folks might really feel sorted,” she explains. “A spot for the fragile.”

Kaye then took this DIY spirit and prolonged it past the pageant, founding a theatre troupe, The Laundrettas, which carried out all over the place from avenue theatre in Hackney to cabarets in Soho, local people centres for the aged, and even opened for George Michael at Wembley Stadium in 2007.

It was a frenzied, chaotic existence: by day, she labored as a panorama gardener; by night time, a cabaret showgirl. With funds all the time tight, improvisation was key. “If I wanted one thing, I might make it or discover a option to create it myself,” she says. “I did not have anybody else to depend on.”

Communal and resourceful: Kaye’s course of

In 2008, following the collapse of Glastonbury’s Misplaced Vagueness space because of private acrimony among the many organisers—a chapter documented brilliantly in this 2018 film by Sofia Olins—Kaye and Robin had been key members of the workforce that stepped in to launch Shangri-La as a replacement.

Shangri-La basically took the immersive, DIY mannequin of Kaye’s laundrette and scaled it up, giving 20 younger collectives the liberty to create their very own worlds. “I wished to go additional,” says Kaye, “to make virtually a residing, respiratory theatre set the place there have been no edges. I did not need folks to know what was actual or what was part of the present.”

It was a mammoth enterprise, one the place her current expertise with Bristol’s Invisible Circus—a troupe that took over derelict buildings and remodeled them into efficiency areas—proved invaluable.

Dwelling and dealing collectively, typically for little or no cash, the Invisible Circus had staged epic reveals for hundreds. “Having the ability to dwell collectively was the important thing,” she says. “The excitement was so nice, making this big factor with so many unbelievable folks you are fully in love with.”

This communal, resourceful strategy continues to underpin the whole lot Kaye does at Shangri-La. Whilst the sector has grown to embody a whole bunch of volunteers, artists and contributors, she strives to take care of a way of intimacy and inclusivity.

“Each attainable factor I can consider to make folks really feel welcome in that house, I’ll do,” she says. “That is the true overarching theme of the sector.”

Zero ego and trusting the unpredictable

All through all of Kaye’s initiatives (describing them would require a whole e-book), a particular inventive course of has emerged. Key components are embracing uncertainty, trusting collaborators, and discovering magnificence within the unpredictable.

“As a inventive director, it’s important to have zero ego,” she stresses. “Every little thing is a collaboration.” In apply, this implies leaving house in her designs for others to fill in and inspiring artists to attempt issues they have not accomplished earlier than.

This strategy has not been with out its challenges. “Some folks would love a wonderfully completed plan,” she laughs. “However there’s such magnificence within the chaos.”

Her core workforce at Shangri-La at present, whom she smilingly describes as “all on the spectrum ultimately”, thrive on this surroundings. “We are able to speak about 50 initiatives without delay and simply transfer on to the following,” she smiles. “Not everybody can address that, nevertheless it works for us.”

Certainly, for Kaye, the method is as essential as the result. “It is about taking a threat. Who’s to say what makes good artwork anyway?” Briefly, she encourages her collaborators to care much less concerning the consequence and extra concerning the journey. This fosters a tradition the place experimentation and failure aren’t simply tolerated however celebrated.

Find out how to handle inventive folks

Managing giant, numerous inventive groups is notoriously tough, however Kaye’s lack of ego is essential to creating it attainable at Shangri-La. “If folks assume they’re collaborating with you, it is a two-way factor,” she explains. When a venture veers off track, she gently steers it again, all the time leaving room for others’ concepts to flourish.

Delegation comes naturally to her, though she prefers to consider it as a collaborative strategy. That is partly as a result of she has had intensive expertise residing with and collaborating with giant numbers of individuals. It is also partly as a result of she’s accomplished each job herself—from set-building to performing to operating bars—so she is aware of what she’s speaking about and what persons are going by.

She has by no means had the posh of ample sources, so she has realized to see constraints as alternatives. “When you lack cash, make it your self or discover one other means,” she believes. This DIY ethos is woven into each side of Shangri-La, from the hand-built units (made with supplies which are largely recycled 12 months after 12 months) to the collaborative programming.

Above all, although, Kaye is targeted on the viewers and making everybody really feel included. Shangri-La is deliberately designed for everybody, together with introverts, extroverts, and people in between. “I need each group, even a bunch of lads, to really feel secure and revered,” she says. “In the event that they really feel revered, possibly they’re going to be extra respectful in flip.”

And he or she by no means desires Shangri-La to cease evolving. “I have to all the time add one thing new to the combination,” she says. “Folks come to Glastonbury for a present. It is not concerning the bands; it is about the whole expertise. I need to be certain that there’s one thing for everybody and that it is as accessible as attainable.”

Dwelling the work

Kaye’s story shouldn’t be one in every of in a single day success or formal coaching however of relentless self-invention, community-building and artistic threat. And it is clear that for her, the road between life and work is just about non-existent.

“Shangri-La isn’t just an occasion that occurs yearly,” she stresses. “It is my entire life as a result of it encompasses everyone I meet; anyplace I’m, I will convey them into it by some means. I’ve to place my whole coronary heart and soul into it, or it will not be genuine.

“I additionally take the spirit of it with me into different initiatives,” she provides. “I work fairly otherwise from individuals who have skilled within the industrial world, and bringing a brand new perspective may be transformational. I am wanting ahead to doing extra of that within the upcoming fallow 12 months.”

For creatives, Kaye’s journey is a strong reminder that essentially the most transformative work typically emerges from the margins, from these prepared to embrace uncertainty, belief their collaborators, and discover pleasure within the unpredictable.

Because the lights of Shangri-La flicker into the early morning and festival-goers lose themselves in its maze of artwork and chance, the spirit of Kaye Dunnings—her resilience, her openness, her radical creativity—shines brighter than ever.

In a world that craves certainty, she reminds us that there is typically magic within the mayhem.