her body as words - Choreographer’s Statement

From my earliest creations, a pervasive, underlying subtext of my work has been the embodiment of varied, authentic and relevant images of women. Born in 1952, I came of age during the second wave of feminism, and as a young woman my notions of female identity were brought into focus largely through reading Simone de Beauvoir, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer. Early in 2019, I discovered that the translation of Beauvoir’s The Second Sex that I had read in my twenties was vastly abridged, and only the first half of her book. Furthermore, the translation by H.M. Parshley ruthlessly revised the author’s Proustian style and philosophical language to conform to his own taste as a man of science. When I read the 2009 translation of the complete text by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, I was knocked over by the power of Beauvoir’s philosophical text and the epic proportions of her proposals. The force of this new encounter with Beauvoir’s assessment of woman’s “situation” pivoted my attention back across the decades to my childhood and youth, observed from the vantage point of an older woman swept up, like all of us present at this time in history, in feminism’s fourth wave.

For her body as words I have worked from the unabridged 2009 English translation of The Second Sex, in a collision with the deeply entrenched images of the female from folk and fairy tales – stereotypes that Beauvoir unpacks, assesses, discredits, and repositions.

Particular statements by Beauvoir have been central to the creation of her body as words:
“Personal accomplishments are almost impossible in human categories collectively kept in an inferior situation.”
“Presence in the world vigorously implies the positing of a body that is both a thing in the world and a point of view on this world: but this body need not possess this or that particular structure.”
“One is not born, but rather becomes woman.”
“Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.”

The artists collaborating with me on her body as words have navigated treacherous territory to bring this work into being. I owe them my deepest gratitude.

A special thank you to Anne Bourne, Ganavya Doraiswamy, Fides Krucker, Michelle Silagy, Angelika Simpson and Margarita Soria who were all involved in creation when her body as words was being developed as a stage work.