Factory Floor is a creative network for women artists/writers/performers- a forum for exploring, sharing and testing solo work and discussion in a supportive, artist-led environment. FF was founded in 2006, following a series of workshops and symposia at Lancaster University entitled Women’s Writing for Performance. We meet 3-4 times a year, taking it in turns to host and facilitate weekend workshops and showcase new work. FF currently has eight members nationwide: Abi Lake, Caroline Wilson, Clare Duffy, Emily Underwood-Lee, Kerstin Bueschges, Lena Simic, Lorena Rivero de Beer and Louie Jenkins.
Factory Floor
MaMSIE – (Mapping Maternal Subjectivities, Identities and Ethics), international interdisciplinary research network that aims to focus attention on the maternal in current cultural, political, aesthetic, psychosocial and theoretical configurations. The network is co-founded by Lisa Baraitser and Sigal Spigel and it is based in the School of Psychosocial Studies, Birkbeck, University of London.
MaMSIE
TaPRA – Performance and the Body Working Group
Although the “body” has been key to critical discourses since the 1980s, the impact of such discourses on understandings of the performing body has been limited. While “the performative” has become a key metaphor for examinations of bodies in the social domain, the specificity of performance and its frames, the ways these impact on the actions of and reactions to the soma, have received far less critical attention. This working group therefore recognises that there is still substantial research to be undertaken, especially in relation to interrogating cultural form(s). Areas for consideration include: historically based readings of the body (including the gendered, racial, sexualised and politically radical body); group or ensemble collections of the body in performance; the individual body as testament; the virtual body; and, the disciplined (rehearsed) body.
Performance and the Body WG
Politics and Aesthetics Reading Group
The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home has joined forces with Lorena Rivero de Beer in starting up an Aesthetics and Politics Reading Group in January 2010. The Politics and Aesthetics Reading Group responds to a desire to create a space that supports our effort to read philosophical/political theory outside academic environments and develop our critical thinking. The group is directed to people interested in exploring the complex relationship between art/aesthetics and politics. Current members include Ben Phillips, Britt Jurgensen, Carmel Cleary, Cathy Butterworth, Daniel Simpkins, Gary Anderson, Jennifer Verson, Lena Simic, Lorena Rivero de Beer, Penny Whitehead and Tim Jeeves.
Migrant Artists Mutual Aid
A group of artists who can come together to raise small pots of money to grapple with huge problems. A network of people coming together to produce and attend events that can raise between 1000 and 3000 pounds. MaMa is Liverpool-based.
MaMa
The Magdalena Project, international network of women in contemporary theatre
The Magdalena Project is a dynamic cross-cultural network of women’s theatre and performance, facilitating critical discussion, support and training. It is a nexus for diverse performance groups and individuals whose common interest lies in a commitment to ensuring the visibility of women’s artistic endeavour.
The network was founded in 1986 and currently spans more than 50 countries, with autonomous national groups organising festivals, gatherings and events on a regular basis.
The Magdalena Project
Sunday Lunch Club
The Sunday Lunch Club is a peer networking, work share and meal event that has run six times a year for the past year. Initially started by our Artistic Director as part of a bursary from New Work Network and Nuffield Theatre Lancaster, the Sunday Lunch Club has been run by Proto-type for the past year. The 2009 programme was funded by Nuffield Theatre Lancaster with additional support from LanWest, New Work Network and Arts Council England through Grants for the Arts. Events have been hosted throughout the North West with one national event in Yorkshire. Each event is structured around peer sharing of work: two-three artists show an excerpt from a new work that they would like feedback on; we then lead the artists through Critical Response to help them gain a greater understanding of the impact their work has on an audience. After the work share, guests are invited to enjoy a Sunday lunch, which has been catered in for the event.
