For years after becoming a mother, actor and dancer Liv Tennet says the idea for a solo show about matrescence and the transformation of motherhood followed her around. Now, through different genres of dance, her one-woman show For You To Know And Me To Find Out starts this week. She talks to Capsule about the juggle of being a creative and a mother and why we battle against the idea of ‘the cool mum’ in our heads.
As the cliché goes, art imitates life, and there may be no greater metaphor for artist and dancer Olivia ‘Liv’ Tennet, in that she has attempted to create a one-woman show representing her journey of motherhood – and she’s had to create it all within the sparse hours she has childcare.
“I was like, ‘I’ve got kindergarten hours to make this show,’” she laughs. “I’ve got between 10am and 2pm, and I’m going to use those hours really productively!”
Liv, 33, has been working in the acting industry for more than 20 years, and has starred in many of our most iconic shows and movies, as well as working as a dancer and choreographer. She is the mother to an almost five-year-old son, Alwyn, and she says the idea for this solo show has been following her for years. Using different genres of dance, coupled with a voiceover of her inner thoughts as a mum, For You To Know And Me To Find Out starts tonight at the Basement Theatre in Auckland.
The rough concept for the show was ‘matrescence, transformation, and the existential quest of one woman grappling with the possibility of having it all…and the question of what “all” actually is.’
Liv says she was particularly interested in the relentless juggle of selves – of being a mother and an artist, the two sides of one very busy, very joyous life and how these dual roles work both for and against each other.
“From a logistical perspective, artists don’t have a lot of consistency of work, financial stability, predictable routine. So, my job has none of that, but I need all of that to be a mum,” she laughs.
For the past few years, Liv found herself jotting down notes and ideas, and finding movement concepts for different songs that reminded her of motherhood. All these slices of inspiration eventually lead themselves to being her first solo show. It’s hard to explain dance, she says, but as any mother knows, it’s also very hard to explain motherhood.
“Throughout this whole process, I’ve been amazed at the mirroring of making art and parenting,” she says. “They can both be profound at times, and profoundly frustrating at times.”
Included in Liv’s overall description of the show is the word ‘matrescence’, a term that describes the transformation that a mother or birthing person goes through when they have a child. While it’s not a new term, it’s only recently entered the mainstream conversation after the release of British journalist Lucy Jones’ ground-breaking book, Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth and Motherhood. (Even though, as the author Lucy Jones points out, Microsoft Word still underlines it as a mistake).
For people who have struggled to find anything that describes the metamorphosis of motherhood, it’s a word that has a level of soul recognition once you read it.
“It was like, ‘Oh my gosh, wow, someone has actually put a word to this – that there’s a complete transformation that is so physiological, mental and emotional,’” Liv says. “I found the word when I was making the final changes to my show, and I definitely took a lot of inspiration from it.”
A lot has been written about how motherhood affects the creative process – by compressing the time available, but amping up the inspiration – and this was Liv’s experience as well. But as a dancer, there is another level to creating a solo dance show after having a child – the body she is now telling the story through is very different to the one that came before.
“Pregnancy and birth have changed my body, so technically I’m not able to do the things I could do before,” Liv says. “But actually, it’s made me a better performer because I can’t rely purely on technical skill – I have to draw from other things now to get the same result.”
“And I’m no longer striving for perfection; I feel like the flaws and the things I don’t do so well, make the work more interesting. And that’s mirrored again in parenting – I’m not going to get everything right, nobody can get everything right. Hopefully, the things that I get wrong can add some colour to my son’s life. It’s something I want to model for him as well – ‘you’re not going to get everything right. Everyone is flawed. Everyone is just trying their best.’”
Before she got pregnant, Liv had the same fantasy in her head that we all probably picture when imagining what a professional artist and dancer would be like during pregnancy. “I thought I would be floating and glowing through pregnancy – exercising a lot, eating really healthily… that I would keep dancing throughout the entire thing,” she laughs.
The reality was different – permanent nausea meant Liv vomited throughout her entire pregnancy, with hot chips being the closest thing she got to a vegetable for a long time. Plus, she ended up experiencing a kind of hip dysplasia, where her hips felt like they were going to fall out of their sockets. “I had to wear a weightlifting belt the entire time… my partner had to roll my legs over to get me out of bed,” she laughs. “It was not what I had imagined.”
Creating a show that covered the expectations versus reality is an important part of For You To Know And Me To Find Out, particularly skewering the idea of aiming to be ‘the cool mum.’ Instagram is a particularly fraught place for motherhood messaging, and Liv said that the ‘I’m not a regular mum, I’m a cool mum’ trend was one that tipped her over the edge.
“I think I’m just now accepting that I don’t fit any stereotype of any mum that I thought I would, and I don’t have to. You can just be the mum that you want to be, and that you can be! We’re all just surviving and trying to do our best along the way.”
While the demands placed on modern motherhood and juggling everything can be relentless, Liv is also very aware of how luxurious these complaints can be compared to the battles other mothers are currently facing. An outspoken advocate for a ceasefire in Gaza, Liv has been attending the Central Auckland protests weekly since the devastating bombing began and the proceeds of For You To Know And Me To Find Out are going to Camps Breakers, a community dance crew who teach children in Gaza.
“It just brings into stark focus how privileged we are on this side of the world, and how privileged I am to do my job without dealing with a genocide at the same time,” she says. “As a mother, I’m acutely aware of my privilege to raise my child in a safe environment. The problems I complain about in this show are not even in the same realm as the issues what other people are dealing with and it felt very, very important to acknowledge that.”
For ticket information about For You To Know And Me To Find Out, please visit here
