Falling Knives & Runaround
Wives gallery... click on thumbnails to enlarge
image...
Falling Knives & Runaround Wives...
the background
Whilst on tour in 1999 with "After
Her Death", the company where approached by a support
group for survivors of domestic violence, and asked to create a performance
piece that gave a platform to their lived experiences, with the aim
of bringing about change, through audiences gaining knowledge and
understanding of the issues experienced by someone in a domestic violence
situation. Once again the company’s co-founders Catrina McHugh
and Kathryn Mace took up the challenge. 100 women/young women informed
this production, and it took 12 months to create. The production was
first toured Regionally in 2001, and then Nationally in 2002, and
most recently regionally in 2006 reaching
over 11,000 people.
Falling Knives & Runaround Wives... the story Set over the hectic, unforgiving season of Christmas and New Year,
the production unfolds with four very different women caught in the eye
of a storm. Tricia is about to leave her beloved job as her fifteen year
old daughter is pregnant; Gillian, Tricia’s cousin, has left her
hubby for her lesbian lover (much to her mother’s horror); debt
ridden Michelle is being cheated on, again, by her wayward husband, and
Susan tries to hold her life together despite being regularly beaten by
her violent partner. Their common goal is the determination to put on
a rip-roaring New Years’ show as an ABBA Tribute band!
Falling Knives
& Runaround Wives... Comments
“Brilliant. So many thanks for
telling our stories with such sensitivity and humour. Special thoughts
to those women who had planned to come, but weren’t allowed to…”
2001
“Since your last performance one of our young women was badly beaten
by a an older boy, and another became pregnant. Both young women, and
others in the group, have handled these problems with knowledge, recognition
and heightened confidence, and that is directly through access to Open
Clasp – they think clearer about issues and have more confidence
to speak out.”
2002
Falling Knives & Runaround
Wives was supported by...
The following groups directly informed the creation
of ‘Falling Knives & Runaround Wives’
The Meadows – Bridge - West End Women and Girls Centre – Avenues
- Gateshead Young Women’s Outreach Project - Hexham Youth Initiative
– NECA - Riverside Community Health Project - Unified Group of Lesbians
from Tyne & Wear. The following funders supported this project:
Newcastle City Council. Northern Rock Foundation. Northern Arts. Sure
Start. Women’s Trust Fund. A+E Education Trust. Community Foundation,
serving Tyne & Wear; The Sponsors Club, Proctor & Gamble, R W
Mann and the Robert Muckle Fund.
