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Born 1969 Barrhead near Glasgow.

1987 – 1990 Studied BA Creative Arts (visual art/ performance & music) at Trent Poly (now Nottingham Trent University)

2003 – 2006 Arts & Humanities Research Council Fellow at RSAMD & GSA


PERFORMANCE / VIDEO WORK

2007 February “Rearranging Realities”
DVD of Artist to Artist Interviews. Established artists share their opinions and insights - encouraging, inspiring and challenging emerging art-makers to raise the stakes when placing their intimate selves in front of a viewer. These candid and direct interviews also aid the demystification of artistic production for all interested parties.
Artists include: BOBBY BAKER, JOHN CARSON, PAULINE GOLDSMITH, MANDY MCINTOSH, ROBERT PACITTI, AINE PHILLIPS, FIONA TEMPLETON & LISA WESLEY

2006/07 “Ochone Ochone” solo live performance & video.
National Review of Live Art, Tramway; TULCA Festival, Galway; Openport, Chicago?I enjoy dancing. I enjoy watching other people dance, especially when you catch them there, lost in the moment. Trouble is, there is no “in the moment”. Inescapably we leave the trail of our past behind us.
“...more than an engagingly delivered series of quirky confidences... dealing with the ongoing grief and moral dilemmas that are Iraq, I doubt there are many shows that touch on that territory so tenderly and with such humanity.” The Herald

2005 February “Doormat”
Collaboration with Opera North & Bonington Gallery, Nottingham - Video images of Mozart’s Don Giovanni alongside real audio interviews of deplorable behaviour in relationships

2004 Autumn “Butterfly”
Dramaturg & Video with Quarantine’s production at Tramway, working with three generations of the one family.

2003/04 “Avoidance Tactics No. 1 thru to 25”
Video/ Live Performance in collaboration with 9 female Honours students from RSAMD Contemporary Theatre Practice Course. December in Chandler Studio, RSAMD & The Arches in March for National Review of Live Art

2003 Oct – Sept 2006 - 'Taking the Personal Out of Itself - the development of personal material in a live art context’.  Awarded a 3 year practice based Fellowship from the Arts & Humanities Research Council working with Glasgow School of Art & Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama & New Moves International. As well as developing her own solo & collaborative projects she is developing a connected Symposium Programme and DVD (teaching aid)

2003 Spring & Summer  “Unaccompanied”
Video Installation working with non-nationals in Gent, Belgium for the Time Festival & in Glasgow (city centre shop). where individuals sing popular & traditional songs from their own country to camera, without music

2002 Autumn “Backward”
Large-scale performance & video piece involving 11 performers aged 9 – 67. Writer/ Director. Research & Development stage funded by Scottish Arts Council

2001/02 "If I Knew Now What I Knew Then"
Solo performance & video, created as part of ‘Scotland’s Year of the Artist’. Residency/ collaboration with Stirling University’s Psychology Department (Face Perception Lab). Touring: Dublin Sculptor’s Society; Catalyst Arts, Belfast; G12 Glasgow; Powerhouse Nottingham; Prema Gloucestershire; Traverse Theatre Edinburgh

The Scotsman (Joyce McMillan): “Words, music & film, stay in the mind like something strong & healing. The overall effect is beautiful & full of a kind of soul-saving gentleness. Rutherford’s vision is ultimately uplifting”.

2001 Spring “You’ve Chosen Numero Uno”
Short film based on Blind Date show where participants go on a date with themselves.  Made during a two month International Residency at Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada.

2000 “Where D’ye Get Those Eyes”
Solo performance at Edinburgh’s Book Festival

1997 “You Don’t Say"
BBC2/ Arts Council England commissioned short film. Writer/ Performer. Collaboration with artist John Carson.

The Observer: “The highlight of the series; is the universal tale of love gone sour. In its compressed wit, it is better than many a full-length film”

”Donna Rutherford and John Carson are, respectively, Scottish and Irish performance artists who work with new forms of "story telling" - quirky and sometimes disturbing narratives often fuelled by alcohol. They joined forces for the first time for this film. A fast moving, fractured conversation between a woman and a man charts the ups and downs of a relationship. Like most relationships and the arguments that are such a feature of them, the story owes little to conventional logic. We can only gasp in amazement as the couple go dancing across the gender divide, realizing the impossibility of a perfect relationship”
Lois Keidan (Live Art Agency)

1997 “Lonesome Standard Time”
Music-Theatre funded by SAC & GCC. Scottish tour. Writer/ Director

Aberdeen Journal: ” …walks a gang plank of improbabilities, dives head first into a strange sea and lives to tell the tale in a language that can only be described as extraordinary”

1996 “Every Blank Cries Shame”
Solo performance in collaboration with sound artist Matt Wand. NRLA/ CCA commission. Toured UK till 1999.

The Herald: “Rutherford has the idiosyncratic turn of phrase and febrile twist of the imagination that enables her to spike the expected moment with some sudden, disconcerting flash of insight … an artist of consummate understanding, compassion and onstage finesse”

1995 “All of Me, Why Not Take All of Me”
Performance/Video collaboration.  Arts Council of England Live Art Commission. Writer/ Performer/ Director

The Herald: “The text mixes in telling fragments of song, a shrewd skein of myth and children’s story that edges the personal testimonies into something more universal, a realm of vulnerabilities, frustrations and hopes that is, all of us”

1994/95 “De Hele Waarheid, Niets Anders” “The Whole Truth, Nothing But"
Music-Theatre. Created in Ghent, Belgium. Toured Belgium & UK. Involved Turkish, Flemish, Scottish & Bosnian musicians. Barclays New Stages Winner & funded by International Initiatives.

The List: “Rutherford holds out the promise of a new and accessible angle on
national and cultural identities”

1993 “Ochone”
Solo performance. Platform Artist at National Review of Live Art at ICA, London. Toured UK, Belgium & Denmark in 1993/94.

The Herald : “Acute observation on love, trust and the shattering of illusions”


COMMUNITY VIDEO WORK:

Rutherford’s video work (ie. filming, directing & editing) has involved diverse community based groups including (since 1998):
Scottish Gas Youth Challenge (video won a UK community events utility award);
New Directions (long-term unemployed & over 25);
Dalmarnock Youth Project, East Glasgow;
North Ayrshire Dance Project;
Easterhouse Young Carers;
Glasgow Care Leavers Social Inclusion Partnership;
Scottish Year of the Artist – launch video;
SYOTA residency in East Ayrshire with Lone Parents;
Lord Provosts Millennium Award Scheme (elderly/ youth project about the future);
Enable (special needs respite care);
Fair Deal for 1 in a 100 (shown at Hampden conference, special needs respite care);
Central Easterhouse Tenants Forum;
East Glasgow Youth Theatre (The Bay – a documentary);
7:84 Belonging Youth Project;
Off-Cast Project (pop video for dance track);
Sub-Urban Festival (East Renfrewshire, Street Arts festival with Kultyer Dance Theatre);
Rembrandt Women (Workshops with locally employed women at National Gallery, Edinburgh);
Arisaig Primary;
Milton Kids (Special needs afterschool club)
Race Awareness Training Video for Glasgow City Council


TEACHING:

Rutherford continues to devise programmes for teaching Performance, Writing and Video Art at Post Graduate & Degree level.  Institutions include:
Glasgow School of Art (Historical & Critical Studies, Sculpture& Environmental Art);
RSAMD (Contemporary Theatre Practice & MA Acting);
Glasgow University (Theatre, Film & TV Studies);
University of Bristol (Feminist Theatre Studies);
University of Essex (Theatre);
Dartington College of Arts, Devon (Performance Writing & MA Theatre);
Galway Mayo Institute of Technology, West of Ireland (Sculpture)


PRODUCING:

1998 – 2000 Producer for large scale Lottery Funded project “Myths of the Near Future”.
JG Ballard stories developed for live performance by Director/ Designer Stewart Laing
(Tramway co-production)

2000 Project Animateur for “see-saw” at Tramway. Involving 70 community participants.

1990 – 92 Technical Production Manager for various companies and festivals including “Dogs in Honey” and Nottingham’s “NOW Festival”.

1992 – 94 Programmer for Nottingham’s “Powerhouse” contemporary arts venue.


COMMITTEE WORK:

Spring 1997 – 2000 Member of Scottish Arts Council’s Combined Arts Committee


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