MAM
MAM is suitable for a range of spaces; both indoor and public realm spaces, theatre stages, performance festivals, community centres, parks and shopping centres.
The solo is approx 55 mins long
In the east end edge-lands of 1992, a pregnant woman struggles with the idea of becoming a mother. Sixteen years later a son comes to terms with the family he belongs to. This hard hitting dance work is a study of ordinary lives, extraordinary love, the gold, the rubbish and the inevitable that we pass down through the generations.
Concept Jen Malarkey
Choreographed & Directed by Jen Malarkey & Carl Harrison
Mam and Son Carl Harrison
Commissioned by Company Chameleon via UPLIFT, supported by Yorkshire Dance and Punchdrunk Theatre
Watch it here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIRarexalmA
I really loved what I saw, loved the movement, choreography and the pathos. Really loved the energy, the characterisation and the music, it made me think of mums, challenges, freedom and the determination to break free.
Punam Ramchurn, Talent Development Manager, Factory International
Through the characterisation you created a really engaging world. It was hard to look away even though sometimes you felt you should! There was humour but also a lot of sadness and anger bubbling under the surface. It could exist brilliantly in the public realm.
Louisa Borg-Costanzi Potts, Head of Programme, Artsadmin
My biggest take away was the use of sound and the absence of spoken text. I didn’t feel like anything was missing, Carl’s emoting and physicality were so strong that they told us everything we needed to know. It worked.
Gerrard Headley, Dancer with OD Works
REVIEWS - On The Kids Are Alright
It’s ridiculous, absurd, infuriating and, at points, very, very sad. Which makes it an almost perfect portrayal of an attempt to navigate loss in the aftermath of an utterly unfathomable event. A jumbled-up clown dance through a blank space: that’s grief all right.
4 out of 5 stars
The Stage
Encounter’s hypnotic dance on grief was reinterpreted for digital using one long take. It captured the feeling of staring out of your window in lockdown into snippets of stranger’s lives. Director Jen Malarkey did not simply rework the show for digital – she made the medium integral to it.
Lockdown Hit: Show of 2020, Francesca Peschier
It is an agony to watch, and I mean that as the biggest compliment.
Lyn Gardner, Stage Door
The outdoor nature-concrete setting undeniably provides a sense of journey that a theatre space couldn’t. As the end of the day cocoons around Karen and Keith, people walk home, avoiding the invisible boundaries of grass and pavement under a darkening purple sky. Front doors open and close. The cameras keep the space open and our relationship with the couple ever evolving, even though by the end we know nothing much about them except the aching hole they share. Replaying the experience in my mind the space is imbued with meaning. Next to the tree. In the bush. In between the flats on the paving stones where they dance and talk about prawns and Asda. Place is a poignant trigger for memory.
4 out of 5 stars
Naomi Obeng, Exeunt Magazine
On Jen Malarkey
Jen Malarkey is a rare artist; She works cross artform – she’s interested in movement led work that has text and spoken language at the heart of the storytelling. The two forms (physical and spoken) have equity in her work and align to create an often explosive practice.
Louise Blackwell, Co-founder of Fuel.
Jen’s work really interests us. She combines text and movement with rare confidence, flair and skill. Her ideas are distinct and convincing.
Christina Elliot, Senior Producer, The Place
It’s not often that one encounters* work in theatre and performance that feels utterly distinctive. When you do, it leaps out. I’d heard of Jen and her work before I met her and so first I’d looked at I Heart Catherine Pistachio online and it did that - it leapt out. A rare collision of dark absurd humour with a sharp and delicate kind of honesty. It didn’t look or sound like anything I was aware of being made in the UK. The choreography shifts between a consciously awkward mawkish physicality and a fluidity that has real beauty in it. It’s tender, clever, human and humane work.
Richard Gregory, Artistic Director, Quarantine