Project/ Mine
Performance, 2019
Inspired by the real-life relationship between Maiko Yamamoto and her 12-year-old son Hokuto, and his obsession with Minecraft, MINE is a new, intergenerational performance that opens us up to expansive and strange new territories that both interrogate and recognize the role technology plays in our modern parent-child relationships.
Using the computer construction game Minecraft as a kind of theatre, a group of gamer/performers between the ages of 10 and 47 enact different mother-son narratives in front of an audience of roughly the same age. As they travel through digital terrains together, live-operating tales from the Beowulf saga, Bambi and The Terminator, personal stories of the powerful bond between mothers and sons emerge and weave themselves into the performance.
I started playing Minecraft about two years ago. This was prompted by my eldest son, Hokuto, who was 10 years old at the time and a self-proclaimed ‘gamer.’ I am now 47 years old, and despite the fear I might have about how obsessed my child is with video games, playing Minecraft with him has been a revelation. The worlds we create together offer an alternative in which I am still the parent, but the social relations between us are vastly different. We still love and care for each other, but our dynamic is flipped somehow, as his abilities in the game are better, faster and deeper than my own. While I struggle to build a single room shelter — block by block — he puts up hotels and empires. He uses redstone to build levers and portals. He tells me when it’s time to go to sleep. He makes potions that help me to see in the dark. He changes my ‘skins’ for me.
And yet, he’ll still ask if it’s ok to get a dog before he ‘tames’ one. He’ll still place his bed beside mine. In the world of the game, he is still mine and I am still his Mom, but we are also just two players, tinkering away and discovering things as we go.
Created and Performed by Yamamoto and her son Hokuto MacDuff, Conor Wylie, Remy Siu and a group of 4 local gamer/performers, aged 10-14, in every location.
Directed by Maiko Yamamoto
Media Design by Remy Siu
Costume and Visual Design by Leah Weinstein
Dramaturgy by Carmen Aguirre
Lighting Design by Jeff Harrison
Technical Direction and Stage Management by Daniel O'Shea
Produced by Theatre Replacement
Photos by Tim Matheson, Claire Haigh
Video by Cameron Anderson
