SIZE OF COMPANY
3–7 on the road

SCALE OF VENUE
Small to large

PERMANENT STAFF
Artistic Director
Bobby Baker
Touring Director & Performer
Sian Stevenson
Producer
Steph Allen
Production Manager
Steve Wald

ARTISTIC POLICY
Performance artist Bobby Baker explores issues through art and performance that radically affect our daily lives. Subject matter ranges through health, shopping, madness and motherhood; identifying seemingly mundane subjects which are explored in an idiosyncratic and innovative performance style. The work is performed in a wide range of spaces from theatres to kitchens and tours regularly throughout the year.

REVIEW EXTRACTS
The most extraordinary and endearing performer…charming, eccentric and thoughtful, Baker offers you plenty to chew on.
Financial Times (How To Live)
A performance artist of rare quality and distinction.
Daily Telegraph (Box Story)
Farcical and dark, and as Bobby promises at the outset, makes you feel better.
The Guardian (How To Live)

CURRENT PRODUCTIONS
How to Live
Bobby Baker has created her own mental health therapy empire, demonstrating her techniques on her patient: a pea. Developed in consultation with psychologist Dr Richard Hallam, How to Live is available for touring in a new small-scale version, touring to theatres, art centres, drop in/day care centres. (75 mins, 3 on the road.)
Give Peas a Chance!
Give Peas A Chance! presents an inspiring posse of human campaigning peas - periodically popping out of their patients pods and erupting into choreographed dance routines and politically pertinent chants. This project is a development of an idea generated by Bobby Baker and Dr Rufus May - a leading Clinical psychologist - to raise awareness of the stigmatization of psychiatric patients. (outdoor promenade performance, 3 on the road, 7 local participants found through workshops.)
Diary Drawings
With an exhibition of 200 images selected from approximately 800 drawings, Baker reflects on mental distress and the mental health system. A highly personal exhibition that lets the viewer identify with the subjects explored, particularly the hilarity that helps process extreme situations. (Wall-based exhibition, 3 on the road.)

FUTURE PRODUCTION
Geography Dog
A cross-disciplinary interactive web project - Baker will produce a virtual map by recording, in collaboration with a variety of community organizations and schools, aspects of four staged walks around the neighborhood of Queen Mary, Tower Hamlets during which participants will be asked key questions about  ‘model’ qualities of their experience of family. All the walks will be recorded through the eyes of a dog that will accompany Baker on the walks.
(web based community lead project)
A Model Family
Focuses on five generations of Baker’s family, highlighting periods of mental illness, trauma and emotional conflict in a durational site-specific installation with performer Sian Stevenson over 17 days. Baker will explore the emotional impact of major world events, societal pressures on families, their potential impact on mental health and the way family experience is transmitted across the generations. In development for summer 2010 as part of Baker’s Research Fellowship with Queen Mary, University of London.
(site specific large scale installation, 4 on road, 17 days durational performance)

WRAP-AROUND
After-show talks and question and answer sessions on mental health and the arts. Talks and workshops for performers and graduate/undergraduate performing/visual arts students. Workshop performances and training for people with mental health problems, medical and connected professionals.

RECENT INTERNATIONAL WORK
2007 UK tour (How to Live)
2006 Australia, Germany (How to Live)
2005 Australia (Box Story), USA (How to Live)
2006 Australia, Germany (How to Live)

TOURING AVAILABILITY
Details on request