"AFRICAN BOTTOMS aren't supposed to manage ballet techniques. But you don't dance with your arse, do you?" This spirited one woman show, devised and performed by black Manchester performance poet, Su Andi, is based on her mother Margaret's life story. Margaret is dying of cancer, and she tells a story of racial hatred from neighbours and police alike; and oppression by the Catholic Church.
Partly raised in an orphanage, Margaret lands "back with the nuns" when her first child is born. "Your child died in the night" was a euphemism used by the nuns with the other mothers to tell them their child had been adopted. Margaret is glad that nobody wants to take her son because of his colour.
Later (after being married briefly to a Nigerian), Margaret works nights so she can dress her young daughter in spotless tailor made clothes and send her to dancing classes. Still, they are spat on in the street. Wistfully, Margaret remembers the mixed neighbourhood in Liverpool where she used to live, with people from all over the world. "We all got on. You could marry anyone you wanted and nobody gave a bugger." After the war, it all changed: "the unity had gone from our lives".
The unique twist in this story occurs at the end, when a projected image of Margaret appears. Su Andi's performance is enhanced by the strategic use of projected images throughout, as well as a soundtrack of hospital noises.