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DONNA RUTHERFORD
Born 1969 Barrhead near Glasgow.
1987 – 1990 Studied BA Creative Arts (visual art/ performance & music) at Nottingham Trent University
2003 – 2007 Arts & Humanities Research Council Fellow with RSAMD & GSA & New Moves International
PERFORMANCE / VIDEO WORK
March 2010 - March 2012 Developing intergenerational project KIN working with CCA and NHS. Funded by CS Partners Fund. 2 part project with Listening Posts touring clinical waiting rooms and solo live performance with performers to camera. Still touring...
“Rutherford has an instinct for delving into the troubled heartland of everyday life. Here, she succeeds in confronting our fears while reminding us to celebrate shared humanity. This solo performance is a powerful meditation on the shifting dynamics that seep into the relationship between middle-aged children and elderly parents. Talking straight to Rutherford’s unsentimental, unhistrionic lens, performers volunteer affectionate anecdotes that also venture into what is often unspeakable territory, giving raw, vulnerable voice to the encroaching practical concerns” 11th February 2011 - The Herald
2009 February to present Miss Electric Gypsyland performing as DJ/VJ playing Middle Eastern, Balkan Beat and other Mediterranean sounds. Running monthly clubnight plus DJ in Residence with National Review of Live Art and with Balkanarama and with IETM conference
2008 -2010 Assistant camera & video editor for various projects with Cairn Production including Modern Apprenticeships & Scottish National Orchestra
2008 Nov - 09 January Artlink at MacMillan Centre, Livingstone. Artist-in-Residence working with female cancer patients creating personal short films
2007/08 Nov – April “Medley of Denial” solo live performance/ video
West Dunbartonshire Violence Against Women Partnership 16 Days of Action. Tour community venues, schools and refuges
When a person is at sea she seems very small and insignificant. The sea is still a place where a following wind can change to a head wind in just a few minutes, pleasure can turn to pain and the mundane can turn into a matter of life and death.
2007 June to present – Scots/Irish traditional singer at Humanist Ceremonies (weddings, naming ceremonies & funerals
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.
Bobby Baker, John Carson, Pauline Goldsmith, Mandy McIntosh, Robert Pacitti, Aine Phillips, Fiona Templeton & Lisa Wesley
2006/07 “Ochone Ochone” solo live performance & video. NRLA Tramway 1; Edinburgh Fringe;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.”
The Herald: “...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.”
2005 February “Doormat”
Collaboration with Opera North & Bonington Gallery, Nottingham - Video footage of company’s Don Giovanni production alongside real-life audio interviews revealing deplorable behaviour in relationships
2004 Autumn “Butterfly” Dramaturg & Video with Quarantine’s production Tramway, working with 3 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 – Feb 2007 - '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. Developing own solo & collaborative projects, a connected Symposium Programme and DVD (teaching aid), plus collaboration with Stirling University’s Psychology Dept Memory Lab
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 land to camera, without music
2002 Autumn “Backward”
Large-scale performance & video piece involving 11 performers aged 9 – 67. Writer/ Director. SAC Research & Development
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 three month International Residency at Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada.
2000 “Where D’ye Get Those Eyes” Solo performance with video at Edinburgh’s Book Festival
1997 “You Don’t Say" BBC2/ Arts Council England commissioned film. Writer/ Performer. Collaboration with John Carson.
…work with new forms of "storytelling" - quirky and sometimes disturbing narratives. 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)
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”
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”
1993/94 “Ochone” Solo performance. Platform Artist at National Review of Live Art at ICA, London. Part of Bad Girls season, CCA. Toured UK, Belgium & Denmark
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 (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 Video Art, Performance & Writing 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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