Bobby Baker performance

Drawing on a (Grand) Mother’s Experience (DOGME) was first performed at WOW – Women of the World Festival at the Southbank Centre in 2015, following an invitation from WOW founder, Jude Kelly, to re-stage Baker’s seminal work, Drawing on a Mother’s Experience (1988). By then a grandmother and as dedicated a feminist as ever, Baker chose to instead bring her original performance up to date. 

DOGME explores the experience of early motherhood from the more reflective vantage point of age and experience, while considering the ongoing challenge of combining motherhood and parental responsibilities with the drive to retain autonomy.

For the 2021 tour, Baker and Daily Life Ltd. worked with emerging producer Catherine Turner who is a disabled person with multiple impairments. Benefiting from both Baker and Turner’s lived experience of access provision for disabled people in the arts, the tour had a strong focus on accessibility. The work was adapted to include innovative integrated audio description, pre-show introductions, and touch tours. The tour was accompanied by a programme of talks examining Baker’s practice and the inter-relationships between gender, ageing, disability and exclusion.