Parturition
A 30-minute individual immersive experience taking audience members through their birth and into the first moments of waking life. Audience members had the option of choosing either a theatrical (clothed) or natural (naked) birthing experience and were led through a fabricated birth-canal, onto an operating table and ultimately into a warm embracing interaction with their earthly mother. Prior to the experience, audience members were asked to reflect on the circumstances of their birth and the answers they provided were integrated into a performed dialogue with their ‘mother’ at the end of the experience.
While the experience sought to simulate the terrifying first moments of life at parturition, the ultimate aim was to illuminate the beauty of each individual audience member. The creative team sought to communicate to each person that, no matter their life circumstances, they are loved, cared for and ultimately connected to the entire human organism through the shared origin of life.
The piece utilized video installation, bluetooth headphone technology, strobe lights and original orchestrated soundscapes to simulate both the tranquility and fragility of life in utero and the harsh transition out into the world.
Parturition ran for 4 evenings in January, 2016 in a black-box theatre in North Hollywood.
“This isn't a performance about the insignificance of your being in comparison with the vastness of the universe, but the magic of your very existence” - LAist
