Gravida, the weight and wait of pregnancy to mothering transformation

Westwater, Carrie ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5078-8663 and Nikolajev Jones, Aleksandra 2023. Gravida, the weight and wait of pregnancy to mothering transformation. Šimić, Lena and Underwood-Lee, Emily, eds. Mothering Performance, Routledge, pp. 98-107. (10.4324/9781003231073-11)

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Abstract

This artistic response shares the work of the Gravida project (2018), which explores pregnancy as it relates to creativity: As an aesthetic, as a site of complex discourse, and as a source of profound insight. Mother Artists perform their experiences in an epic, multi-media dance piece that centres on the maternal as an opportunity to explore, and better understand an inner dialogue and creative force. For Gravida pregnancy is a literal and physical site of creation. The performance is of intimate material which challenges existing heteronormative values and attitudes. It offers another view, a more profound image of the female body in performance, as a metaphor for transformation. This chapter takes the form of a choreographic script with accompanying notes. Director and choreographer Aleksandra Nikolajev Jones created an overarching Gravida project as an ongoing civic mission to help inform birthing communities about maternal mental health and embodied trauma whilst also changing representations of the mothering process that tend to avoid these issues.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Journalism, Media and Culture
Publisher:	Routledge
ISBN:	9781003231073
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	12 January 2024
Last Modified:	12 Jan 2024 16:39
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/164988

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