MUST: The Inside Story (2009)

Working with Clod Ensemble, London as an associate artist on the Performing Medicine project, Peggy began to develop MUST by workshopping with medical students and giving talks on Medical Humanities.

Journey through the hills and valleys of one woman’s body, adventure across the melting ice caps and the thirsty deserts. Must is a poetic look at what it feels like to have a body. It excavates the memories and images contained in the joints and layers of bone.

Inspired by images from Gulliver’s Travels, Hildegarde von Bingen, The Elephant Man and everyday experiences of the medical profession, Must takes a hard stare at the medical gaze and the assumptions people make about each others bodies. This piece generates a space of shared and communal affects, such as sadness and fear, but also hope. In the pre-show, Peggy Shaw welcomes the people and leads them into the space, setting the scene for a show that is more an act of sharing – a one-woman show that, paradoxically, is communal. Peggy Shaw’s voice, by both speaking and singing, performs as a source of emotions that are invoked to act as a means of healing. She offers a cartography of her ageing, queer body, a body to challenge medical language and look at how internal emotions are attached to the body.

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Must was first performed at the Wellcome Collection in London, November 2008. Supported by the Wellcome Trust and Arts Council England.

Footage of the performance can be found here.

Media photos taken by Manuel Vason.