While most parents have to impose a strict barrier between their professional and family lives, Natasha Gilmore has integrated the two on several occasions with glorious results. The artistic director of Glasgow-based dance company Barrowland Ballet is mother to three children who have influenced her work in more ways than one. Having a keen understanding of what entertains and engages young audiences ensured shows such as Poggle and Tiger Tale hit the spot. More recently, the company’s beautiful interactive video installation, Family Portrait, featured Gilmore in a forest with all three of her offspring clambering over her.

For the company’s latest creation, Wee Man, Gilmore’s eldest son Otis Bazie not only inspired the piece but is one of the cast members. Because now that the babies and children who used to join Gilmore playfully on stage have grown into teenagers, the choreographer is becoming increasingly aware of how boys and men behave. This highly physical piece of dance theatre aims, says Gilmore, to ‘explore the shifting and unshifting rules of masculinity across the different generations.’

Performed by an intergenerational cast of adult men and teenage boys (some of whom will be drawn from the local community), Wee Man employs humour to pick apart toxic masculinity and the tension and tenderness that can arise in male relationships. Meanwhile, across town, Gilmore herself will be taking to the stage with Jude Williams in Chunky Jewellery. And to balance out all the testosterone on display in Wee Man, this is a show devoted entirely to the sisterhood. 

Wee Man, Assembly Dance Base, 5–17 August, 7pm; Chunky Jewellery, Assembly Rooms, 1–24 August, 1.30pm.