Performance

Me, Mother is a documentary and performance project exploring the impact of childbearing and motherhood on the lives of female circus artists. 

Touching on ideas of risk, body image, family, and self-empowerment, the piece has three interlinked strands: an installation, a digital archive and a performance.

Drawing on a set ‘menu’ of improvisations and exercises, the performance has been created to serve as a flexible structure that can contain a broad range of experiences and stories.

Director’s Note

We have had ten days in which to make a show about motherhood and circus. It’s not a one off show. Our aim is to create a template for a show and an installation that can travel round the world, with a changing cast of women, stimulating an international conversation that will take place both onstage and online in the Me, Mother interactive archive, but most importantly also in person, amongst you, the audience, the people who come into contact with the project. We have the honour of starting that conversation off.

Press & Coverage

The Circus Diaries:

"Within a structured format written up on white-boards at either side of the stage, the women introduce each other, and move from trivialities into deeper and more resonant stories. It's gentle, and moving, and honest, and brave. Less for the improvised nature of the show – which feels instead supportive and unthreatening – than for the decision to place experiences of motherhood in front of a public audience."


Roundhouse:

In Pictures: MES: Me, Mother

Shows

Date

21-23 April 2016

Venue

The Roundhouse

Team
  • Matilda Leyser / Director & Performer
  • Tina Dekens / Archive Story Coordinator
  • Cat Boot / Assistant Performance Director
  • Tina Koch / Performer
  • Charlotte Mooney / Performer
  • Grania Pickard / Performer
  • Linn Broden / Performer
  • Crin Claxton / Lighting & Design
  • Elizabeth Westcott / Musical Composition & Performance