Happy St. Patrick's Day and news on the new piece!

Happy day of celebrating Ireland! I'm realizing that a lot of Americans don't actually know that St. Patrick's Day is a proper holiday in Ireland - it is! It's not so much (these days) a time to celebrate St. Patrick (though I know some more religious folk still do) - rather, for my and younger generations, it's a day to celebrate our culture, and the resilience of the Irish spirit, through 800 years of repression, famine, and the legacy of trauma the church has left. In Ireland (when there isn't a pandemic) we celebrate with a week long family friendly festival of art, music, theatre and culture, as well as parades with gorgeous floats and costumes.  I hope you all have a beautiful day and celebrate it the way we do in in Ireland - not just with drink ! - but with music, dance, art, poetry and love for each other.  Here’s one of Ireland’s current rising stars, Tolü Makay with a beautiful cover of a Saw Doctors song about an Irish emigrant. They released it at Christmas and every time I watch it I’m in tears again. I'll most likely use some Irish music in Friday's class ;-)  Register now! Friday 9:30am - 10:30am Pacific time  Sliding scale $10-$25  FREE for BIPOC    March 2021 REGISTER for CLASS

New work! I'm currently in the studio at night working on my current performance piece. It's a piece giving voice to postpartum depression and hearing from those who've gone through it and come out the other side.  I am feeling really grateful to be working with some incredible people on this project, and I am looking forward to sharing it with you all. It'll be broadcast online as part of ''Heroines, Harpies and Harlots'' - a woman's theatre festival produced by Beulah Vega in conjunction with Cloverdale Performing Arts Center, here in NorCal.  Barely A Person Directed by: Jess Headington Soundtrack and composition: Laura LAIR (Ireland) Choreography and movement: Rachel Wynne Lighting and location: Dana Hunt  Film and editing: Sean Pettis

Your voice is needed!

Hi friends,

I'm creating a solo dance theatre piece for a women's theatre festival in April. It'll be performed virtually at the end of April.

I'm exploring post-partum depression through this piece - not just my own but I also want to hear from other mums around the world who have experienced PPD. Part of the ''soundtrack'' to this piece will be moms voices sharing their experiences - mostly short snippets.

If you or someone you know experienced PPD (or PP anxiety, or PP rage) and feel secure and safe enough in yourself at this stage to share a little in an audio file, I would be grateful for just two minutes of your time answering a couple of questions on a voice memo that can be used in the soundtrack. All you need to do is talk into your phone.

The intention with this piece is to highlight a part of early motherhood that is not talked about enough, and is often (in my opinion) the direct result of us all living in a white supremacist, individualistic patriarchy. To that end I want to make sure I amplify BIPOC voices - please let me know how you identify when you send me your mp3 / mp4 file. Answers do not need to be in English.

All the voices on the track would be listed as anonymous, so you can be as real and honest as you want. (Swearing / random noises are ok - whatever comes out). We may not use snippets from all files we receive, (for example, if there's too much background noise or we just receive a lot) but hope to use as many as possible to give voice to this.

Thank you, dear ones, for helping me create this pretty vulnerable piece of art. Thank you for sharing with friends.

If you are interested:

* Please record yourself on your phone or computer - you can use the ''voice memo'' app, or just video the floor while you answer and I can extract the audio

* Answer any or all of the questions you feel you can

* e-mail mp3 or mp4 file to me at rachel@expandance.com, letting me know how you identify

* it would help the sound engineer if everything ended up being less than 2 minutes total

We are looking to collect all these voices by the end of this week Sunday March 7th 2021

Thank you, so much,

Rachel

The questions:

(If you're currently experiencing PPD, feel free to answer in the present tense)

1. If you remember it, what was your lowest point? 

"My lowest point was..." 

2. If your thoughts had a voice back then what were they saying? 

"My thoughts were / are saying..."

3. How did you feel about those thoughts?

4. What were the main, overriding feelings during the first year or two of parenthood for you?

5. If there was something that ultimately got you through / helped you, what was it? 

"What turned things around for me was..."or "What has helped me is..."