Look At Me Now, Mummy
2008, 40 mins
‘Small but beautiful’ The Observer
Aurora Lubos is a performer of rare beauty. Soft, fluid, witty and endearing, her performance style appears improvised, but is meticulously crafted to devastating effect.
After taking a break to have her first child in Poland, Look At Me Now, Mummy finds Aurora older but no wiser, practicing scenes for a show she already finds herself in.
As Aurora’s awareness of her own vulnerability grows, Look At Me Now, Mummy becomes an intimate, funny and moving portrait of one woman’s desire to look the part, whilst not understanding what part it is that she is supposed to be playing. Look At Me Now, Mummy is about trial and error and theatrical failures, with a baby always crying somewhere in the distance.
Look At Me Now, Mummy forms half of Act One, a double bill of VDT’s work partnered with Test Run touring nationally and internationally. Act One is a chance to see Vincent Dance Theatre up close and personal.
Made in 2008, Look At Me Now, Mummy was originally co-commissioned by Danceworks UK (South Yorkshire), The Point, (Eastleigh), Lakeside Arts Centre (Nottingham) and The Tron Theatre (Glasgow) and funded by Arts Council England.
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Director's Notes
Look At Me Now, Mummy was made in late 2007, 8 months after Aurora happily gave birth to her first son. It’s a dark and intimate portrait of a woman tangled up in her own imagination, caught between conflicting roles as a performer and as a mother, never sure whether she should stay on or leave the stage.
Look At Me Now, Mummy reads like a series of unpredictable scenes from shows that will never be made, a number of fleeting, improvised ideas and that seem momentarily convincing, but don’t stack up to much. The work attempts to make things that are completely artificial try to appear natural. There is lots of space around each image. We are inviting an audience to see something so private.
Look At Me Now, Mummy is concerned with the choices a woman makes about making work or making babies, about being an artist or being a mother. It’s not representation, not an obvious story. The performer is dropping in and out of performance states, unsure of how to continue, or why to continue with the show.
It could be read as a game that a childless woman invents to pass the time.
Or a tragi-comic portrayal of a woman who has lost a baby.
Or a heart-rending portrait of someone yearning for the possibility of having a child.
Or a woman on the edge of giving up.
Or a lonely performer questioning her need for the show to go on.
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Who's Who
- Directed and Designed by
- Lighting Design by
- Performed and Devised by
- Understudy and Rehearsal Director