Bishop May Down (they/them) is an Arizona-raised, Glasgow-based performance maker and facilitator.
They hold a First Class BA (Hons) in Contemporary Performance Practice from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland
and a Level 3 Scottish Vocational Qualification in Social Services: Children and Young People.

Bishop’s conceptual work imagines queer, post-human, and post-capitalist speculative futures.

Their research-based practice is committed to technology as a tool for liberation, and they are interested in co-creation with software, hardware and algorithm, working at the intersection of somatic practice and interactive technology. They are fascinated by the theatrical liveness of technology and the juxtaposed creative agency of human and system.

Bishop has been supported to make work by Creative Scotland, Tramway, Take Me Somewhere, Platform, Scottish Youth Theatre, and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. Their post-human performance project Conversations with Eve had it’s professional premiere at Feral Arts and Colette Sadler’s Present Futures, and since, they have presented in academic and cultural contexts about their reflexive experience working with AI.

Bishop is currently working in collaboration with Emma Lewis-Jones on Insistence: A Butch Ballet, a new socially engaged dance work exploring butch identity and experience with a tourable devising model.

Bishop’s performance work is produced by Hacks.

Photo: Laurie Brown

bishopmaydown@gmail.com

@bishopmaydown

Bishop’s socially engaged work is informed by a five-year career in social care, and a facilitation practice developed with Scotland’s leading organisations
for young people.

They are passionate about co-creating with young people of all ages on socially and politically-engaged performance work that challenges structures of power and authority. They work with a responsive, play-centred and rights-based approach to make authentic and boundary-pushing performance and participatory experiences.

Their politically-engaged performance work ELECTION premiered at the Edinburgh International Children’s Festival 2025 and remounted in Glasgow in 2026.

Bishop works regularly with Rumpus Room, Imaginate, and Platform, and is a Lead Artist for the S1-3 Young Artists at the Citizen’s Theatre.