The Bumps is as much an inquiry on theater-making as a play. Three pregnant performers play the pregnant characters in the production, creating an economy for pregnant actors where none exists, and a model for how to fold the needs of pregnant people into any work context.
My design explores the following questions: What types of clothes can accommodate continually changing bodies? Can we escape the maternity industry that entices pregnant people to purchase a whole new wardrobe? How can we look to images of our own mothers' clothing to uncover myths about how pregnant women are represented from the 1980s until today? If we incorporate or repurpose clothing from our mothers does that translate into a different personal connection onstage? Can the circularity and cycles of fashion help us understand the ways in which memory and the past surface continually in the present?
The Bumps is a National Performance Network production and was presented in workshop at The Skirball Center. It was also filmed for an upcoming BBC documentary series on utopian art. A reading to benefit Planned Parenthood will be presented Aug. 14 & 15, 2017 at the Issue Project Room in Brooklyn, NY.
Written by Rachel Kaunder Nalebuff. Directed by Deena Selenow.
Photos: Arianne Alizio and Amber LaRosa