A  RECENT funding boost has allowed PICA to take over the box office risk from performers, freeing them up to push their experimental works to greater limits.

“We are no longer a venue for hire; we provide space, staff and marketing,” brags PICA director Amy Barrett-Lennard.

The extra funding comes from WA’s arts and culture department and the Australia Council, and one of the first cabs off the ranks is next year’s Fringe offering Reckless Acts.

Four disturbing, but very different, pieces will be presented in various parts of PICA’s heritage-listed headquarters.

• Experiment with pollination in Reckless Acts’ Ecosexual Bathhouse.

Pony Express will take audiences through a secret fire escape to explore the building’s dark underbelly and unseen spaces.

Punters will be invited to touch, smell, listen and get intimate with nature in Ecosexual Bathhouse.

“Experiment with pollination, unwind in the sauna, or be guided by a bathhouse regular toward your own organic awakening,” the blurb says.

Dances with Worms turns fear and horror into an imaginary force as Desert Body Creep wriggles and writhes through an hallucinatory dreamscape of worms, synth pop, live sampling, zombies and shifting bodily forms.

• Desert Body Creep wriggles and writhes through an hallucinatory dreamscape

Performed by a dancer and a giant gummi worm it’s an exploration of decay that invites a new idea of reality.

Deep Soulful Sweats has been around since the 2013 winter solstice and its Fantasy Light Yoga is a little bit Jane Fonda and a whole lot of whacky weird – an energetic ritual/yoga/dance party where everyone is a participant and there are no spectators.

PICA artist in residence Malcolm Whittaker is taking to the streets to ask people what they think would make the best theatre show ever.

• Yoga meets Yoda in Fantasy Light Yoga.

Responses will be turned into Jumping the Shark Fantastic, a set of conflicting and preposterous ideas.

“People will be keen to see if their ideas made it — and I believe they all will,” Ms Barrett–Lennard says.

The shows are individually ticketed but people are encouraged to see a combination to get the most out of performances, with space for a break and a coffee or vino in between.

Thanks to the funding increase Reckless Acts is set to be an annual feature.

You can catch the inaugural one January 20–28, tix $29.

Capacity is limited so book ahead at fringeworld.com.au

by JENNY D’ANGER