MOTHER OCTOPUS

 

Our very first relationship is that with our biological mother. None shapes us as much as this one: We grow up in her womb, it is she who nurtures us. We are one, protected from the world, which has so far only come to us in muted form. Until our peaceful idyll comes to an abrupt end, when the first trauma of our lives occurs, the first act of (maternal?) violence: happy birthday! We are expelled, squeezed out, torn into the glaring, cold reality. No longer protected from the hands that reach for us. 

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In mother octopus, two queer performers explore the relationship to their mothers by approaching them through drag. In doing so, they autobiographically examine the traumas caused by their gender-stereotypical upbringing. In a performative dialogue about parenthood, they create a queer-positive family model that invites parents and children, mothers and queers to an intergenerational exchange. In doing so, mother octopus approaches motherhood from a queer-feminist perspective in which motherhood has no gender and asks: how can mothers and queers be allies in the fight against patriarchy?

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Funded by Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg , Behörde für Kultur und Medien and the Hamburgische Kulturstiftung. Supportet by Probebühne im Gängeviertel.

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Photos: ©Lennart Nielsen

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