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Countdown

Hello there! Previously on this Tumblr, the three girls have written their own views on the some stages of creating AGELIFT at Generale Oost, now my time has come to do the same.

The Last Week

Ok. There’s no way to hide it: we are very excited about the last week! Mostly because we are finally wearing our bald caps, a moment we have been dreaming of for quite some time! Also, we are performing three times!!

Here is a selfie I took while becoming bald, in which you can see Chloe and Anneloes, our make-up angels that have given us a great deal with our bald heads.

(brace yourselves for some real paronomasia)

Once our heads were bald, we headed downstairs for a general run, in which the head of the theatre, Eve Hopkins, as well as some other audience members gave us some feedback, helping with making things straight in our heads (or not).

Dealing with feedback is an interesting challenge to the work of an artist, even more to the work of a collective of artists. We have had the opportunity to bring some of our colleagues from ArtEZ over and had a lovely tea time with them to talk over some features of the performance.

If you are around, come watch AGELIFT and stay for some chat chat and dance dance!

*mystic // unrealistic*

Dear all,

Jumping on the train after a morning rehearsal, I would like to go over some points from our titillating morning conversation about . . .

the necessity (or not) of ritual in contemporary society.

Originally, as our concept centers around age, I chose to focus on the teenage years- the awkwardness, vulnerability, and uncertainty of this age I find enthralling. :)

In the amazing documentary, Teenage, director Matt Wolf exposes the historical context of the adolescent, by tracing youth subculture trans-continentally. He explains that the teenager didn’t always exist: “We were a wartime invention.

Who would we become?

Who would decide it?”

For some, the teenage years are characterized by low self-confidence, often resulting in over-compensation and awkward methods of self-expression. It’s a transition towards coming into one’s sexuality, before understanding what that means, fully. It’s painful, scarring, and enduring, yet, somehow, still transitional and fleeting.

Of course I generalize, but to me, teenagehood is both a difficult and beautiful time, with an awkwardness that is entrancing. I’m fixated by the idea of pubers as liminal members of society, seeking and lacking ritual to clearly delineate their coming of age. Of course, religious rites of passages are ubiquitous and widespread, but as an artistic practice, I’m interested in looking to personal content from which to reinterpret/reincarnate rituals to be enacted in performance.

What signaled your coming of age?

Who decided it?

When I started to work, it soon became clear that Tex and Lisen easily entered into dialogue with each other about their disparate rites of passage, while Joao stood separated. “My puberty was reduced due to lack of time. . . “ he wrote, dryly expressing a sense of detachment towards the notion of coming of age. From here, I started to work with him in solo, with the intention of creating some sort of coming of age scene for him to explore his relation towards becoming an adult at this moment.

In various coming of age rituals, there is the motif of being painted or cloaked in white, symbolizing a neutrality of identity in order to gain a new name/role in society. As G. Stanley Hall states, “Adolesecence is a new birth.”

I read about babies being born in the caul, the whitish amniotic sac from the mother’s body, being superstitiously thought of as imbibed with psychic powers- this physical attachment to the womb an indication of a person’s future importance. Another text spoke of the necessity of a forcible separation from boyhood and the figure of the mother. I thought about the act of looking back towards memory by entering a reflective space, as a means to ritualistically move forward, or else to detach from the child self . . .

In the studio, Joao was dressed in white, in a very large jumpsuit, and stepped in front of the projection of his memories. The visual impact was clear, but what was his relation to these ideas? As he watched his own, shadowed cutout from the projected memory, he couldn’t help but get existential —“Do I exist?” he asked, joking.

But as far as the ritual went, he felt passive and detached. He explained that he is uninterested in rites, but rather with being up to date with technology/contemporary society, priorities which he sees as excluding each other. He asked sardonically, “What if I perform a finance ritual?” thereby equating the mystic with the unrealistic.

We then entered a discussion about ritual vs. ceremony, whether participation by others is required, and who is in control of the ritual: is it personal or dictated by the “community” that is present? Who are the witnesses? Who has the agency?

Is the goal, actually, to explore Joao’s sense of detachment towards coming of age?

To him, puberty is inevitable, but varies depending on household- whether it is ignored or accentuated. He expressed a certain apathy: “You go through puberty, whether or not you acknowledge it.” He validly questioned whether puberty is marked by the mind or body, and whether the context matters more than the experience.

Now, how to meet halfway through our contrary perspectives for the purpose of composing?

This, as part of a collective, is where things get enriching & interesting! :) :)

To start, we spoke of the difference between being “non” and “anti”- non being passive, and anti: actively against. Much like indifference when it comes to love/hate, non-ritual would actually be oppositional in its neutrality. “Anti” would work hand in hand with the functions of ritual as performance, whether or not legitimized by the performer, perhaps.

So, as a sort of compromise, we had fun creating an anti-ritual. One which doesn’t highlight or accentuate. Empty. One in which he performs the opposite of a ritualistic cliché

It reads:

Don’t speak in the microphone

Give yourself your old name

Take the blanket off. Put it on again

Don’t watch yourself in the video

Be told when to enter

Read the text to us

Silence

Uncover the blanket and carry us

Take off your white clothes

Interestingly, the composition came out quite similarly as what we had originally tried, when I was deciding the actions. Only now, they held more clarity, which again, lends the question:

Who is in charge? Who has the agency?

What do you think- is it non or anti?

Yours truly, and thanks for reading.

Love<3,

Maddy

Rebirthing

Dear all,

This is Tex writing. As you know the four members of Baby Skin Collective are doing a residency at Generale Oost in Arnhem, the Netherlands. The Generale Oost team asked all of us to write individually about our experiences during the process of making the performance, AGELIFT - a collection of physical memories.

So here it goes.

Last week I had a very intense physical and mental experience during a rebirthing practice that I have developed together with Lisen. We where alternating leadership and guiding the other into our own rebirthing practice.

In short about the practice itself:

We would read to each other a text written by our own mothers about our birth. We would play with dimming or intensifying the light. We would lay naked while being covered by a pile of clothes. We would play with giving weight on each other’s body. We would listen to recorded sound of my mom giving birth to me. We would take an hour to do so. When “being reborn” Lisen would cover me in blood and see what kind of movement/state this would bring out in me.

I experienced a deep fear & anxiety about coming closer to “the birth,” with the increased pain and sound of my mother. At the same time I felt safe by the voices of my mom and dad, who felt so deeply trusting, both calming and rooting me. Clearly, I must have heard their voices not only 21 years, but 21 years plus 9 months more, when I was in my mom’s belly. The feeling of being inside her came out really strong as an experience when I tried to open my eyes when all the fabrics where still covering me. This feeling of being almost suffocated, pressed into a small space, went paired with the sensation of being folded in a familiar way.

When opening my eyes, still covered by clothes, I could see darkness and small, light circles. I could really imagine it- being inside of my mother’s stomach: the blood, darkness and wetness covering me, holding me tight.

When “coming out” of the opening, I noticed my sensations were on a very highly-tuned level., and I felt like I was unfolding my body for the first time. It felt like I re-experienced what it is to move my little finger, to stretch as a cat, my toes and limbs.

Every movement and sound felt intensified. My awareness decreased, yet I was so sensitive towards every little detail. It really felt as if I was opening my eyes for the first time in life, and I didn’t know HOW to do so. It felt like time was melted and my body was numb. When opening my eyes, it was an amazing experience, because though the light bled through, I couldn’t see immediately. It took rather long for the vague images in front of me to materialize.

Moving my head from side to side, it felt enlarged.

It was an amazing experience of moving, as if it was my first time.

Movement that came out after the “REBIRTH” was folding, shrimping, stretching, feeling numbed, wet, dark, sensitive and vulnerable.

After experiencing it so vividly, I felt like I needed to read more about this topic. So, I ran off to the library in Arnhem looking for a book that was missed, then asked my boyfriend (who is a living library/bookshelf himself) where to look next. He finally found a Dutch version in the OBA, library of Amsterdam. Making everyone else work for me, I then asked my mom to collect Rebirthing, a book by Leonnard Orr & Sondra Ray, from the seventies.

On the cover it cries of new yoga, spiritual breathing, being reborn, letting go, relaxing, positive thinking, cosmic orgasm, the physical experience of God, Breath-meditation, energy breathing, welfare consciousness and liberation.

Since this weekend, I became slightly obsessed by the book and its rallying cries. I’m grinning while reading, feeling the sun on my cheeks in Sonsbeek (the most beautiful forest/park of the Netherlands), leaning towards almost believing how powerful the rebirthing methods are via energy healing breath.

This book loves me..

Most of its introduction is about how the book has the potential to become a bestseller. Besides that intriguing information, it also tells me that in the seventies, a rebirthing movement developed in California.

The authors explain that in the beginning, they where experimenting with how to re-experience birth, believing in the potential to cleanse oneself by breathing in energy. In this book rebirthing means repairing breath. It is also described as conscious breathing, or energy-breathing. It seems important that the rhythm is intuitive, with the inhalation and exhalation relaxed and fluid. The goal of breathing in this way is to inhale as much air as life energy. This cannot be done in a mechanical manner.

They started off using bathtubs to recall birth memories. Lots of the people who underwent the practice were able to access birth scenarios which were rooted in their subconscious. A warm water bath simulates the uterus. Soon, they understood that the most essential element of birth is breath- to recollect the “godly” energy to the body and mind of the human being. So, they continued this practice ashore.

They are quite holy about it. . . Holy moly!

The authors claim that spiritual breathing is an inspiration, not a discipline. It’s the key to success, healing traumas which are stored in the mind and body. The authors speak a lot in truths, which makes me a bit skeptical. . . Nevertheless, I enjoy its 1970s waggish swing. :)

On the other hand, after reading for a while, I found unsettling relations to the theta-community….

As I understood it, the writer of the book has links to the Church of Scientology. A bit of background information for those who don’t know: according to independent sources, Scientology has anywhere from 30 until 50.000 members. In Belgium, where the movement counts between 300 and 500 members, it has been officially acknowledged. In Germany Scientology is by the Verfassunsschutz recognized as a sect, and therefore politicians have forbade it. According to its supporters in the Netherlands, Scientology counts between 100 and 200 members.

It came into existence around 1952 out of Dianetics, a system of self-help with psychosomatic effects. The Scientology philosophy adheres that the individual is an immortal spirit, who has a body and a mind, dissimilar from the physical brain. During its stay in the material world, every individual body encounters traumatic incidents and associated forgotten moments of mental energy. Scientology-based techniques would erase the negative effects of these stored incidents. Generally considered controversial by the media, Scientology opposes almost all aspects of contemporary psychiatry as a pseudoscience.

On another note, I have been reading a book called Baby in the Mirror about the existence of consciousness by Charles Fernyhough, in which he claims that sound is the most powerful in reaching the uterus. This confirms that the voices you hear when growing in the uterus are the most familiar.

In essence, the fetus learns to listen and recognize its mother’s voice. A few seconds after birth the fetus can even distinguish the mother’s sound from strangers. They are also able to recognize music that they have been exposed to when living/growing in the thin-walled uterus.

So, the interesting news is that one builds up memories before we are even born!

However, the fetus has to have an adjusted sense of hearing towards the acoustic background/sounds of voices. Body tissue and amniotic fluid have filtered out all high frequencies. So, the fetus hears the world as it sounds like a frogman: muted voices, droning footsteps and the ongoing boom-boom (POW) of the mother’s heart. Voices sound like someone falling out of a boat. Although the light was out in the underwater cave, the fetus must be capable of feeling where she is in space. After 5 months they even know what is up and what is under! Does this mean a fetus has a developed consciousness?

Another interesting fact that I read after experiencing our rebirthing practice is that after 4 months, the fetus has around fifteen different movement patterns. For instance, they can move their heads from side to side, and make little steps with their feet. Not long after that, the fetus is able to open her eyes, looking at the underwater world that is surrounding her, separated not only by an abdominal, wall but also by a wave of interpretations.

Further, I read about a theory that sudden infant death syndrome may not be caused by suffocation, but, rather, dream… When the newborn babe falls into rapid-eye-movement sleep, and has no experience yet with the outside world, it can only dream from living in the uterus, where you don’t breathe…. The baby dreams it is again a fetus, and forgets to take in air.

Luckily, our hold onto life is much stronger than onto an oblivious lunge towards death.

So, lots of thoughts, facts, statements and beliefs that you and I have to digest…

Hope to be sharing thoughts with you in the future…

Love,

Tex