Feather Mammy

Inspired by the eerie scribble on a piece of Clydebank stonework, Feather Mammy is a mysterious and poetic tale of ambiguity, enchantment and washed up sea creatures from a veteran Scottish artist.

Director, writer, performer, designer, musician, sculptor and all-round good egg Alex Rigg is a supremely talented individual. This latest piece of work is a correlation of dance, landscape and sculpture, taking the audience on a poetic and evocative journey through the mind of the enigmatic Feather Mammy.

“I came across a piece of wood by the river in Clydebank in Glasgow some years ago, with the words Feather Mammy scribbled across it in felt pen,” explains Rigg. “It was discarded alongside a load of rubbish; old toys, plastic dolls and things. That was years ago, and the image stayed with me. This strange character started to evolve that fitted the bill. They were Feather and Mammy both at once.”

Feather Mammy is not made up of one person; it is collectively portrayed by four actors and up to four musicians. “It is an idea more than a character; the intensity of a moment. It is happy and sad and simple and chaotic and orderly all at once.”

Rigg has never been limited to a single art form: in the past few years, he has contributed soundscape to Lindsay John's butoh and sets for Mischief La Bas’ monumental Bosch project, as well as performing and sculpting for himself.

Feather Mammy also derives from a series of sea sculptures that Rigg produced in connection with Scottish Natural Heritage, which he hopes to use within the piece. Risking the elements, Feather Mammy will be performed outdoors, amid historic castle views and the bustle of the festival.

“A lot of my work is based outside and involves nature; combining performers, sculptures and the outdoors, including this. I make timber frames, I draw, I write I design… I have a sort of schizophrenic life mentality. I need to keep threads to understand what I’m doing, and as a result a lot of my performances portray these journeys. They combine one moment to the next, sort of like a metaphor for how I deal with things. Feather Mammy is like a journey; a moment in time."

Like many artists, Rigg resists categorisations. "I don’t like to label my work as performance art, as that is a different genre. It is more conceptual and less about physical theatre," he insists. Yet the actual presence of Rigg is always provocative in itself.

His work has provoked shock and controversy in the past, including public interventions. A recent piece at The Arches led to police interest, when his performance was mistaken for a more common Glasgow sight: thinking this strangely dressed individual to be a drunk, they showed an interest that went beyond mere criticism. Fortunately, The Arches staff were able to persuade them that Rigg was a work of art, not threat. This has never been an objective, however. “Shock is never an intention or the point of the performance. While performing, I tend to make myself vulnerable. And it’s strange, because people tend to often react to vulnerability with aggression. It’s like they maybe don’t understand, or they don’t know how to react.”

This, however, should not pose a problem within the wilderness of the Edinburgh Festival: “Edinburgh is a whole different thing really with the festival. It’s a bit of a zoo. So we are likely just to be part of that zoo. I like to perform in museums, because it means you get a lot of different people who are not expecting to see you. They are open-minded and are there to be interested and to learn. So I like to think that the Edinburgh Festival will be a bit like that. I’d like to think everybody will have a different reaction to it.”

A leading figure within Scottish dance and theatre, Rigg’s work stretches across the board, working in design, performance, construction, literature and music, much of which is engineered through his Oceanallover dance and design group. He also builds wooden sculptures and originally studied archaeological illustration. “The ideal would be a project over a long period of time where I could work on all aspects of design. My tutor at college once said to me,“once you know what you want to do you’ll be fine”. I’m still trying to work that out.” His work retains a strong element of patriotism, with Scottish landscape and language often a driving factor within the piece, something of which Feather Mammy is no exception.

A combination of dance, sculpture, music and landscape that harvest to create a site-specific spectacle under the elusive title of Feather Mammy. “This year I think Dance Base have taken some risks – and I’m one of them.” No doubt Feather Mammy is a risk that will certainly pay off!