embracing all of m(e)

performance, 2019

Embracing all of m(e) was a birth — an exercise in freeing myself.

Featuring a projection that revisits voice box, which was made congruently with the ideation process of this performance, I lay at first fastened to the ground by packaging tape inside the projected space.

In the months prior, I had become increasingly gravitated towards placing the body in difficult and at times harsh circumstances to elicit a bodily response. I had my vision temporarily obstructed, I

had been pulled by rope in different directions, I had been tied to a chair, I had slipped and stumbled over an oily surface. All of these experiences produced raw and real responses from my own body — out of survival. I became interested in the fact that when placed in these conditions, I was not really “performing” or “acting” out actions — I was “reacting” to stimuli I placed myself in to explore various feelings and topics.

This emphasis on the visceral brought me to producing embracing all of m(e). Water was poured over my covered face and forced me to get myself out of the tape quickly so I could breathe. I struggled with the force of the adhesive to break free each limb and eventually feel my own body and the soft sand surrounding me.

Acting as a culmination of feeling and thought surrounding gender identity, accepting and loving my physical form, and finding freedom in welcoming the fluidity of self and the fluidity of change —

I gave birth to myself again.