tour diaries.
“It wasn't until I noticed how intense parenting is that I realized I couldn't keep quiet about it. It is precisely by talking about it that you can bring about change, otherwise you maintain the status quo of silence”.
These are words of Mirthe Berentsen, writer, artist and curator whom I have never met personally but whose words I already searched for once in need of comfort when motherhood and art making just didn’t seem to match. I borrowed the above words from the article written by Ciska Hoet for the latest, #177 edition of Etcetera that focuses on kinship. I did so, because I seem to have finally understood their meaning.
Almost two years ago, one week before I gave birth to my second child, I put on paper and kept in silence text which I called ‘tour diaries’. As the experience it describes left me feeling extremely vulnerable, speaking up about it was not an option. Something I strongly felt but couldn’t yet name must have been the Catch 22 mentioned by Berentsen in the article:
“If you speak out about parenthood and do not want to hide it in your work, or even want to thematize it, you also make yourself vulnerable. You quickly become that nagging mother and not the ambitious artist (...) “.
But if the intention is real and if we really want to make our cultural sector (including the dance part of it) more inclusive, if we were to untangle the knots of old structures which if not exposed, might only repeat themselves, and if I were to contribute to that change, I had to de-dust these ‘tour diaries’. And as much as today I wish to write about the practicalities of combining motherhood with freelance art work, the often-lacking consideration of the care part so many of us do, about the time it consumes or about the gender divisions which still seem to prevail, I will, for now, stick to the language of my past experience.
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It is the middle of 2022. In Belgium, in a plane, in an Italian village, in rehearsal clothes. We are post ‘me too’ and post Covid 19 waves. It is time of solidarity, care, transparency, these are times for changes for the better. Inclusivity has only starter to appear.
It is almost 18 weeks old. Around 14,2 cm long and weights around 190 grams. I already know It is a boy. It is already pushing against my costume and doesn’t let it close as securely or prettily as it should.
It is a group piece choreographed by a female artist, by a mother of two. Assisted by a mother of one, a female outside eye. Both of them advocating for making a job of a dancer and motherhood a doable deal.
It is the middle of 2019. We are in a dance studio. Just at the start of the creation process. It is lunch break and I am pumping. Slightly ashamed and guilty for not having time to socialize and eat together with everyone else, I try to look at how much breast milk I am able to produce for my 7-month-old son. I can’t see it very well, it is dark, I am sitting in a dusty corner of a theatre backstage.
It is finished, both the lunch break and my pumping episode. Everyone else is coming back to the space, giggling. Quite content with my 170 ml of milk and with a feeling of preciousness and care I put aside all the liquid and the machinery. Getting ready to start rehearsing again I am joined by the female choreographer. Naïve as always, I smile and start a small talk. “When do you think you will be strong enough? You are the weakest of the group now and I am afraid you won’t manage to sync into the group with all the rest”. I am so happy I have managed to pump before.
It is late spring 2022. It is still an embryo kept in secret but I call anyway. I want to be transparent and ask whether it is ok for me not to jump so high and if so, whether my costume could be adapted. By the time we would play again my body would have expanded.
I heard congratulations and a double yes. A yes for ‘yes, of course, you can adapt the physical material and jumps to what will be necessary at the moment’ and yes for ‘let me call you before the tour starts so we check the costume together’. Relieved, I have once again reassured my belief in transparency. I was never called before the tour.
It is October 2019. It is time for the post-premiere applause. Time for celebration, flowers, drinks (by that time my lactation stopped so socializing as we know it was possible again) and the loving hugs. It is an end to a working time in which verbal violence repeatedly took the centre stage. Often directed at one or two people, mostly with a choir of silent observers at the background.
“You did so great, finally. It Is amazing how audience, costume, light and make up has opened you up – it must have been the process of becoming a young mum that has caused so much resistance in you but it is so great to see you are over it, finally”.
It is hot Italian summer of 2022, beginning of the first performance. It feels good and it makes me feel grateful to be able to perform and to grow a human being both at the same time. We are just getting into it. My bra which in a last moment was secured with a safety pin has opened up and the tutu keeps on falling down. Post-performance I am asked what was my problem with the costume and I am told my outfit and myself looked like shit on stage.
It is 36° degrees. With the stress caused by the not perfectly working sound, this Italian theatre feels even warmer. It is a technical rehearsal and amid the shouting between the choreographer and the assistant, I am told be more like X and Y, less like myself, to jump higher and to basically change what I have been doing since 2019. Confused but not surprised, I recognize these non-constructive feedbacks as a way of dealing with stress. I start to stress.
It is a second show time. It is only the first half of the performance but my body is feeling a bit strange. I am apparently too weak to resist the pressure and I try to jump higher. I know that I am not jumping on my own so I use all the possible muscular techniques to protect my insides. I must be failing as I see my body lifting less high than the others.
We are through to the second half of the performance but my body is only feeling stranger. I feel the fear of showing my weakness battling with the fear for my pregnancy. The show must go on and the stress is taking my body over. It is over.
Applause, everyone releases, so does my body. I have a panic attack and hyperventilate behind the curtain. I don’t know which fear won over which one but judging by the distant look from the assistant, I must have shown my weakness. All that I am thinking now is to loudly say to my big as an artichoke son, ‘I am so sorry’ and ‘never again’.
Paris. Early spring of 2022. The weather is so surprisingly beautiful that it feels like holidays. After each performance we come out directly to look at the Eiffel Tower. The group works, the work works, we are all having a blast and the unpleasant past seems to have finally dissolved into the past. I feel strong for having pushed through and grateful to be dancing, touring and mothering at once.
It is the last day of the Italian tour. After a couple of tearful phone calls and a fearful night of me regularly checking whether I was not bleeding, I communicate my decision not to play that day. Surprisingly I am met with what feels like understanding. What follows though, is direct questioning whether I will be able to play again 4 months post-partum and whether I will be strong enough. Whether my condition will let me jump high enough and whether it won’t make me jump out, in a negative sense. I don’t know, I say but emphasize my willingness and commitment and we agree to check in once I am post-partum.
Our third shared Italian dinner. It is time to split the bill. A bit less shy than on the nights before, I ask whether we could keep in mind that I do not drink alcohol for the moment. I don’t speak French but I hear it being mumbled in response. I say to a friend that I sense some resistance to my question and he confirms that there is one. I openly ask what the issue is and, unaware of the power of that direct question, I trigger a volcano.
“You are being problematic, cheap”, “always”, “more experienced dancers know that on tour we all share equally’, “it is just few bottles of wine” and “why are you attacking me in front of the group?”. Observed by the whole team in an awkward silence, the exchange ended with me being told by the assistant, that I am harassing the assistant.
Double checking the exact meaning of the word ‘harassment’ with our native speaking colleague, I say no and respond that harassment is what happened throughout the creation process. After the three yearlong working process and few rounds of learning how to stand up for myself and my body, I am filled with inner peace and confidence now, that I am standing up for us and for our shared body.
London, three days later. A phone call:
We need to talk, let’s meet - Shall I be worried? - I don’t know - Why don’t we talk now, otherwise I will be worried - Mm, ok, I was thinking and I feel that the piece doesn’t need you anymore - but couple of months ago, when I considered leaving, you called me to say how much the piece needs me - Yes, true, but it does not anymore – so you are firing me. Hmm, ok and why? - On the artistic level. In Italy there was a difference between you and the others - What kind of difference if I can know? - Well, yes, there was a difference in jumps.
...
It is the beginning of December '22 and I am 38 weeks pregnant. The little boy is a size of a small pumpkin and as I am in preparation for the unknown, I am reflecting on what it means to be a mother with an ambition to continue as a dancer. I am reflecting on the vulnerability, strength and doubts that have once already flooded over. I am hoping that won’t happen again and I plan not to ever bend my limits again due to the precarity of that ambition.
I know well that my experience of becoming a mother while freelancing as a dancer was a bad one. I know of people and places that offer care, support and understanding or at least a clean and quiet corner to pump the breast milk in. I was puzzled to hear that more often than not these people are men.
It got me thinking whether it is because men, as opposed to women, never felt the hardness, competition and the rules of patriarchy as directly as young mothers did and still do? Maybe the lack of support or understanding from older female artists is something that we should look with empathy and compassion at? Maybe the generation of mothers which is now passing their expectations and experience on to people like me had to be so hard and tough that any sign of softness, doubt and vulnerability is a treat for them? Or a reminder of what they had to suppress or kept cool when becoming a parent? Maybe for myself, I should hope never to feel tempted to pass on the hardness I experienced to a generation of mothers after me? Maybe for now sisterhood is still just a promising concept?
Maybe one day that most natural thing of being a parent will feel ordinary and included within the workings of our precarious, cultural sector? Maybe, when we let the hardness of patriarchy finally and for real crumble away will we manage to build more relevant support systems? Just then, maybe, we will see that the catchy glitter of words such as SOLIDARITY, SISTERHOOD or CARE sprinkled over old constructions are not enough for a change to happen and maybe only then will we manage to really build new systems of mutual support with new foundations and of much wider horizons.
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We are in the middle of the September chaos. In the midst of fixing, maintaining, caring, soothing and planning. I am almost daily faced with the feeling of being overwhelmed even before the kids start their activities at school or creche. Within my own head space, I crave for a room of my own.
I am hoping for the domestic to make more space for the creative. To see the subject of the family and kinship become the subject of interest to cultural sector and beyond, I am hopeful I will soon learn how to. I get excited about great literature such as ‘Love me tender’ by Constance Debreas , ‘Matrescene’ by Lucy Jones, ‘The baby on the fire escape’ by Julie Phillips, ‘The girl in white’ by Sue Hubbard or ‘Waar zij de wolken, een pleidooi voor minder zelfzorg’ by Suzanne Grotenhuis. I look out for more. I feel empowered hearing these voices speak about (m)otherhood and creativity. About their experience on how to combine artistic work and obligations with caring for the little ones or what it actually means to create and birth a human being and how to juggle, or refuse to juggle, all the roles at once. Their words are a great source of inspiration to me. They help me crack the feeling of isolation. The symposia, podcasts and articles flowing in from many sides and tackling these themes are a great force that open my eyes to how inclusive the ‘inclusive’ really is. They give me the energy to keep them open. They help me gather vocabulary needed to talk and to understand the complexity of the creativity – care – mind – child– availability issue and to question the unambitious and uninteresting label of it.
Feeling the public space open up to what we see as private is a fantastic thing, but, surprisingly, it doesn’t soothe me just yet. Instead, this openness acts as an allowance to fully feel the harshness of what it means to be a freelance dance artist and a parent of small kids. Observing how this long-neglected subject, once sculpted into the periphery, is now shyly gaining the attention it deserves doesn’t bring the immediate comfort I had hoped for. What it rather brings is a release of tension and anger.
Anger though, is a great progress from silence and often a prelude to change.
Kinga,
Antwerp, 2022/2024
(the mentioned article from the Etcetera magazine)
https://e-tcetera.be/eigenlijk-moet-je-tegelijkertijd-je-kind-en-je-voorstelling-regisseren/
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