Year of Graduation

2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

MFA: Dance

Directing Professor

Jeffery N Bullock

Abstract

This thesis research investigates how pregnancy and early motherhood reshape identity, agency, and one’s relationship with the body and interrogates the narrative that frames motherhood as inherently joyful. Focusing on matrescence, meaning the process of becoming a mother, the project explores this transformation through the myth of Demeter and Persephone, the author's lived experience, and scholarly frameworks that center feminist perspectives, and includes an embodied exploration that integrates literature, poetry, and movement. Central to this inquiry is the unsettling experience of a transforming body and the visceral, horrific sensation of becoming unfamiliar to oneself. The concept of reverse metamorphosis, a shift from a more advanced stage to a simpler one, provides a useful frame for analyzing the complexities of maternal narratives, dominant cultural expectations, and how grief is a vital part of maternal becoming, the transition and development of a woman into motherhood. This project will reveal the cathartic beauty of sadness and the emotional storytelling embedded within grief. Ultimately, the research seeks to reclaim space for complexity within maternal narratives, using performance to question dominant cultural expectations and to explore how confronting grief can become a pathway toward renewed identity and bodily autonomy.

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Performance Access Statement

If you wish to see the creative piece or performance that accompanied this thesis, please complete the Request Form, and you should receive a response from the Dance Department within two weeks.

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Dance Commons

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