Running from October 2017 - April 2018 we'll be showing radical performance practices from the UK and the rest of the world, alongside new live work in development from some of Scotland's most exciting makers, all in a super warm and friendly environment with drinks, dancing and welcoming vibes.
MOTHERFUCKER
by Nicola Hunter
MOTHERFUCKER is a multi-layered response to my experiences as a single parent.
I have remained an outsider with my queer birthing body, fluxing and crashing through different lands of otherness over my time as a parent. MOTHERFUCKER is a conversation on gender and the home with a look at those patriarchal hands that feed us, while all too easily pushing their silencing fingers in our mouths.
What was the inspiration for this performance?
MOTHERFUCKER is my response to the way I've been treated as a single mother across many platforms, and how my experiences are very different to the father of my children who cut contact with our children, oh the fucking privilege.
This piece talks not only of my experiences, but of the common and seemingly 'just one of those things' bullshit responses many single parents are fed. The fact that I have to find a few hundred pounds every month before I could even go to work and how that time is limited, how I am unable to go back into education to develop my skills, how I've not had a full nights sleep in years and yet the father of our children walks away and refuses to financially support me bringing up our children. It's utter fuckery.
Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?
Performance can be a tool used as a catalyst for dialogue and dialogue has the potential to create change, all of which is dependent on the intention of the facilitator of that space.
How did you become interested in making performance?
My background is in fine arts I have no formal training in performance/theatre, I came into performance through a live art route, beginning as a fine artist influenced somewhere between the YBA's and painters like Elisabetta Sirani and Artemisia Gentileschi.
MOTHERFUCKER is the next in a trilogy of works after LOST BODIES, which sees me push my own personal creative boundaries by creating a theatre piece that straddles live art. Making art work keeps my soul fed.
Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?
Due to my circumstances, threaded with the nature of my past works, I have never really rehearsed a piece of work. Lost Bodies was developed on tour, it was rooted in shamanic ritual and processing the work on site added to the success of the show, all of the emotion was real which I found kept the integrity and heart of the piece.
I aim to develop MOTHERFUCKER with new collaborators, mentors and partners over the coming year, BUZZCUT will be my first sharing of the work. As a single Mother I am not able, like many artists, to live off my practice, so juggling creative processing, work and home becomes part of the build up of energy to inform the show.
Does the show fit with your usual productions?
My practice will always straddle different processing methods to get the right fit and I hope my work will continue to evolve and challenge me. LOST BODIES was my first tour and I learnt a huge amount during the year we travelled with it across the UK.
MOTHERFUCKER already feels unapologetically angry, whether I can tame myself before hand or the fire gets taller by the 7th February. I guess you'll find out...
What do you hope that the audience will experience?
A pissed off mother at the end of my fucking tether.
This new piece is an exploration of the binary, sex, death, life and the relationship western society has with the mother and the birthing body.
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