Mothers Won’t Drown explores the physical forces at play in the act of birthing.
Imagining the fluid-based relationship between a fetus and the pregnant mother, the performer explores the in-between spaces of compassion, sickness, nourishment, resistance, play, and ecstasy that characterise the world of the natal. Inspired by the essay The Great Mother by Adriana Cavarero, the work uses yarn and the act of knitting as metaphors for the umbilical root, while pointing at the disruptive potential of the vaginal rupture from which a new being is born.
Who marks our roots? Who decides our thresholds? How do we overcome our boundaries, our borders? These are the questions ‘Mothers Won’t Drown’ intends to trigger. Using the yarn and knitting as metaphors for the umbilical root, this performance explores the slippery terrain between the fetus and the pregnant mother, and invites its audience to wonder, why the world has more territories but not enough playgrounds.
About the Artists
Meghna Bhardwaj and Denis Barwa began their collaboration at Frankfurt Lab 2025, at the end of which they performed a duet choreographed by Meghna titled Mothers Won’t Drown. The work originates in Meghna’s choreographic research Yarning that she began in the year 2021. Currently, Meghna and Denis continue to work on the solo version of the piece through a distance collaboration between Italy and India. So far, they have shared the work-in-progress at OddBird Theatre and Khuli Khirkee Mela, New Delhi.
