Racing with the gravity of children, the adults ricochet around this room built for great art, cackling. A narrow dodge. Cori’s it. A swipe across the belly.
MAMA I’M GOING TO CATCH YOU
Glorious
MAMA
defeat. Becoming ‘it’ and ‘not it’ faster than the patter of their own feet, faster than my butter into toast absorption into this new world, faster than the clock at my wrist
LIKE THE SUNSET
murmuring.
This dance is as much of an experiment as choosing a life in art, as becoming a parent, as revealing publicly the labor it takes to make anything. The odds are stacked against it. How could a work so emphatically gentle, silly, chaotic, technical, true come into being in this unequal
READY
violent
SET
alienating
GO
world? But toddlers and curators wait for no one, and Esmé Boyce is joyously obstinate. In The Humbling or Chapter of Mama: Part 1, she brings unspeakable questions into the light and onto this page:
READY
What if we could be honest about the costs of making art and figure out a new way?
SET
What if we could be honest about the costs of being a mother and figure out a new way?
GO
What if we acknowledged the reproductive labor required for anyone’s creative labor? How might our definitions of ‘great’ – art, artists, mothers – change?
I enter Esmé Boyce Dance’s rehearsal*. I say hello to the dancers, Esmé, Esmé’s husband, and Esmé’s toddler Tahlo. I am there to watch, but I can’t help but join the conversation. We talk about the literal musculature of motherhood, the shoulder and back muscles that bulk for all the child lifting: all new shirts, all new jackets says Caroline. She is currently pregnant and also has a toddler who will wind up in this piece.^ We talk about our hair, how it can change postpartum, how a kids’ hair can be so different from their mother’s. We talk about how time is of the essence for Esmé in producing this dance because Tahlo will only be this little for so long+. And I wonder how this dance is going to get made for all this talking, but by the end of rehearsal, I watch an explosive solo, a playful group walking phrase, and a weight-sharing trio. All new. When did that happen? Tahlo, inspired by yesterday’s fiery sunset, points out everything red on the page of his picture book.
Focused on the gravity of children, my eyes ricochet around this room built for great art, delighted. A whirlpool of adults widens, slows
MAMA I’M GOING TO CATCH YOU
Ahhh Esmé instinctively covers her bum where she just got got by her toddler. Cori uses Esmé’s skitter as her cue and pinballs into a surging solo: jumps, balances, full-body rotations in the air, certainly more cat than human, Cori is the ‘it’ to get. The adults lift up Tahlo, encouraging him to poke at Cori’s armpit while she balances on relevé in a parallel fourth position. Too late. She taunts them with her speed and airborne changes of direction. Six can play at this game.
COME ON CORI WE’RE GOING TO GET YOU
Cori slices through the space with Tahlo chasing behind. She adjusts her choreography to keep him safe. Landing in a second position, she stirs the air where his body has never been before, but has suddenly appeared today. His tiny fingers prod at her thigh. This sweet near-hug almost lingers, but
I TOUCHED YOU
the choreography can’t wait. Cori turns and jumps in the opposite direction, furiously swiping at the air above her own head.
CORI
you got me
HAAA
She leans forward at an absurdly steep angle until the ground engulfs her.
This dance is as radical as Mierle Laderman Ukeles’ Manifesto for Maintenance Art 1969!, as Merce Cunningham’s chance procedures, as transforming the material realities and emotional contingencies of mothering into stageworthy performance. The odds are stacked against it. How could a work so emphatically whimsical, quotidian, relentless, loving, true, come into being in this profit-driven
READY
misogynistic
SET
inhumane
GO
world? But economics and inspiration wait for no one, and Esmé Boyce is obstinately joyous. With this dance that calls on everyone in the room, performers or not, parents or not, to prioritize wellbeing over anything else, Esmé brings possibility into the light and onto this page:
READY
A world where mothering is recognized and compensated.
SET
A world where womb-having artists receive governmental, institutional, and communal support to continue producing art after they give birth.
GO
Art-making and consumption governed by the politics of care.
I enter Esmé’s rehearsal room. I say hello to the dancers, Esmé, Esmé’s mom, and Tahlo. Esmé develops a trio for Matilda, Mac, and Cori. Tahlo and Esmé’s mom read a picture book on the side. The dancers stand in a row leaning into each other.
HELICOPTER
They draw their pointer fingers together into three triangles in front of their eyes.
FIRETRUCK
They release their fingers and lean deeper together.
SANDBOX
They hop in unison once,
VELOCIRAPTOR
and make claws of their hands. Later they make a partnering section where the dancers roll across the floor as a group while they crowd surf Tahlo overhead. They call it “the mountain.” you can’t choreograph toddlers, they just do what they do laughs Esmé, but Tahlo beams on the mountain and maybe it will happen every time. There will eventually be a few choreographed sections where Caroline’s toddler and Tahlo have roles that they may or may not choose to perform in the showing. I’m okay with the kids doing anything, everything, or nothing. The dance will go on no matter what.
MAMA I WANT TO BE THE MOUNTAIN
Esmé and the dancers all place their hands on Tahlo’s back and he guides them around the room. He beams now with the satisfaction of reciprocity, and my heart catches like a grape stuck in my throat.
Attuned to the gravity of intergenerational space, I gather with toddlers, adults, and elders on a Thursday in November in a room built for great art, ready. A showing of a dance in progress about the unremitting tension between motherhood and selfhood – even in the best of circumstances, even and perhaps most of all when the self in question wants to do both. A performance of a dance built for what none of us can anticipate
MAMA
but know will come.
MAMA
Caroline tries to leave her son with Esmé
MAMA
so she can dance what’s next.
MAMA
Caroline makes the call. She lifts her son for her plucking footwork and suspended half turns, the two of them traversing between Cori and Matilda’s floor-bound bodies. A breathtakingly skilled dancer with a pregnant belly and a toddler in arms, she continues as the choreography dictates, even though she has never held her two-year-old for this section before. Caroline eventually places her son’s feet on the floor to finish the section on her own. Soon, though, not too long from now, she will have to choose whether to pick him back up or let him practice letting her go.
This dance is as gratifying, heart-wrenching, rapturous, consequential, true, as being a parent,
RED
as not being a parent, as doing what is sustainable, as choosing what is impossible, as being honest about what is,
LIKE THE SUNSET
which is not waiting for any of us
RED
but will transform
LIKE
*In Fall 2023, during a month-long BAC Open residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center, Esmé Boyce created The Humbling or Chapter of Mama: Part 1 with dancers Caroline Fermin, Cori Kresge, Matilda Sakamoto, and Mac Twining along with Esmé and Caroline’s respective toddlers. Throughout the residency, Esmé’s parents and husband provided a rotation of in-studio childcare. During the end-of-residency showing, Esmé and Caroline’s husbands offered childcare along the sides of the performance space and participated in the opening and closing sections of the piece.
^Caroline has since delivered the baby; both of Caroline’s children will be part of upcoming performances.
+Arts on Site is presenting the world premiere of The Humbling or Chapter of Mama: Part 1 on May 26, 2024. Esmé Boyce Dance is presenting the work again on June 15, 2024, at the Riverdale Presbyterian Church Gym. Tickets can be purchased here and here.
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