Present Futures Associate Bursary | Althea Young

Through the Present Futures Associateship Bursary performance maker Althea Young (she/they) has begun to research and develop a new piece asking ‘How we reckon with the desire to bear children when we don’t feel we have the means to offer a child the tools to thrive in an increasingly uninhabitable world?’. This choreographic-text based work is a memoir of a person and generation carrying an unprecedented responsibility and grief for children yet to exist.

Althea attempts to illustrate a series of dreams she has had in which she carries a baby. Most of these dreams are set against a back drop of post-apocalypse- dreams of journeying through broken landscapes holding a baby in one arm, a sword in the other. Some are simpler dreams- a baby lays on her chest small and warm. It is the simple dreams which carry the most weight, of love, heartbreak and violence, more than the visions of apocalypse. Drawing from a wealth of references; from the iconic film aesthetics of post-apocalypse, dystopia and horror, confessional feminist writers like Dodie Bellamy and Sylvia Plath, and her own messy autobiography, Althea performs a love letter (sometimes hate letter) to the baby that lives in her dreams.

Colette Sadler (Stammer Productions) in association with Feral, The Work Room and Royal Conservatoire of Scotland supported emergent artist a micro-bursary to create a happening or provocation on the expanded notion of choreography and performance with and beyond bodies. Present Futures Associateship is for Scottish based artists within the first 5 years of their professional practice. The Associateship offers a tailored package encompassing a research and development bursary, residency space, mentorship and an opportunity to present on their work at Present Futures 2023.

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BSL Interpreted by Rachel Jones.