www.lustyjuventus.co.uk The M(other) Project The M(other) project was a long-term commitment for Lusty Juventus. It explored what it means to be a mother, and also what it means for a woman not to be a mother. The questions we asked included: What is the other when a woman is not a mother? Is there an archetypal mother? Can we really say 'Like mother, like daughter'? Are we always 'doing it for Mummy'? If we had a choice, would we choose our own mothers? Like all Lusty Juventus projects, M(other) interrogated the relationship between spoken text, visual imagery and movement in performance. We worked with digital technologies and projection as an integral part of the devising process; this process involved visual and physical improvisation. Our starting points were personal experiences, classic dramatic and non-dramatic texts, visual art works, music, and video. Each stage of the project developed from a close consideration of its context and medium, including the location and nature of the performance, and experiences of the specific collaborators. The M(other) project consists of: M(other)0: a site-specific performance made in 2002 which was videoed for use in the creation of M(other)1 and M(other)3. It was also documented in graphic form as a triptych and exhibited in a group show at the Clifford Fishwick Gallery, Exeter (2005). M(other)1: a staged theatre production, created and performed as part of the Transformation of Movement programme in Athens, Greece (2002). Further details can be read below. M(other)2: performative conference presentations in which we revisit and theorize from the products and processes of our live and filmed performances with the aim of exposing and analyzing artistic decisions for new audiences. The first version of M(other)2 was presented to the Performance as Research working party at the International Federation of Theatre Research conference in St Petersburg (2004). A very different version was presented at the PARIP (Practice as Research in Performance) International Conference at Bretton Hall (UK) in 2005. M(other)3: a digital video, made with visual artist Russell Frampton (2005). Further details can be read below. We have also made the electronic article on the pages that follow for the Body Space & Technology journal. Here you can access photographs, performance texts, video, and other forms of documentation. Although some of the descriptive information on the page you are now reading is repeated, the article goes further to locate the M(other) Project within our research frameworks as individuals and as a group of practitioners. This research specifically focuses on the practice of collaboration and the use of digital imagery and projection in dramaturgical processes. M(other)1 M(other)1 presents the dislocated experiences of a mother with Alzheimer's disease and her daughter who is left without an identity. This scenario is juxtaposed with sections from Algernon Swinburne's 'The Triumph of Time' which was written between 1862-1866. 'The Great Sweet Mother' of this poem also separates 'motherhood' from the 'maternal'. It was created especially for the Transformation of Movements programme which was co-organized by Lusty Juventus with Alter-Art, Greece; 2.tants.promotions, Estonia; and Giardini Pensili, Italy. This programme included seminars, workshops, a video conference, a multi-media game, and a collaborative three-part production entitled Trilogy of Bodies. It was organized, administered & produced by World-Cef Ltd. in Athens. M(other)1 premiered at the Argo Theatre, Athens on 3 October 2002, as the second section of Trilogy of Bodies. It was funded by the European Commission Culture 2000 Programme and the University of Plymouth. performers: Ruth Way, Roberta Mock & Christine Roberts playwright: Christine Roberts (incorporating poetry by Swinburne) scenographer: Roberta Mock choreographer: Ruth Way video artist: Russell Frampton stage manager/assistant director: Shelley Deignan lighting design: Edwina Rigby costume design & construction: Jenny Ash stills photography for video: Sarah Swainson Watch excerpts from M(other)1 in Athens. M(other)3 With artist and film-maker Russell Frampton, we worked with video, visual imagery and projection as fundamental aspects of creative dramaturgical processes throughout the M(other) project. M(other)3, a 6 minute digital video, developed from the integrated projections that featured in M(other)1. Although each performance outcome worked consciously with the specificity of its medium (and the film is deliberately more abstracted), they share common motifs, themes, spoken words and characterisations. The film creates a sensory landscape of loss and fragmentation. Its attention to colours and textures, and the rapid interference to the motion it captures, alludes to the disintegration of the mind, its capacity to remember, and its move toward stillness. M(other)3 was first screened as part of M(other)2 at PARIP 2005. Its first 'non-academic' screening was at the INPORT International Video-Performance Art Festival, Tallinn, Estonia, 2005. performers: Roberta Mock, Christine Roberts, Ruth Way director: Russell Frampton writers/spoken words: Algernon Swinburne with additional text by Christine Roberts editor: Russell Frampton sound: Russell Frampton sound engineer: Nick Smirnoff, Beatski Studios producers: Russell Frampton and Ruth Way Watch M(other)3.