Because the doctor told me that my cyst is on the borderline between benign and malign, once my mind went far.
‘What if I will die soon? What if I will die in three months? …..What should I do?
...Ummm…..’
“Felipe! If I die in three months, I would like to make a tour with our performance ‘What is Love?’ all over the world! some places where people asked us to come back, some places where people asked us to come and perform, for young people, for elders, for everyone. As much as I can I want to perform and die. so, Can you do it with me? Can we do it together? ”
Felipe said….
“Don’t be silly’
“……….”
Last two years we have been touring with the performance ‘What is Love’.
The seed of the show was planted by Roi, my storytelling teacher.
‘Nana, now one woman show, so you can travel around the world and share the gift of stories and Eurythmy wherever you go!’
And so it happened, I have been telling stories and doing Eurythmy and Felipe has been singing, playing guitar, and reciting poems. In the performance, I asked the questions ‘What is Love?’ endlessly….this performance is all about this question. And this question is my identity.
One day, I met Deborah and Shonaleigh, a well known storyteller who tells stories out of the Jew tradition, Deborah introduced me to Shonaleigh.
‘Oh, Shonaleighi this is Nana, she is touring with her amazing performance called ‘What is Love?’ , it is about domestic violence. She shares her autobiographical story, it is so touching, you have to see it.’
…domestic violence …
Domestic violence, childhood.
My identity.
My tag.
My label.
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2015 Christmas, Holy nights, I was living in Lindfield.
Last three month I have been an au-pair for two adorable kids, the mother gave me a little annex next to their house where me and Felipe could live together. How life brings people together and separate each other, only God knows exactly why. All of a sudden the family had to leave the house, Felipe also left to his home in Uruguay for the Christmas holiday. So suddenly I was left alone in the empty house. one day my job, my new family and my lover were all gone. And the sun was setting earlier and earlier, and it got darker and darker each day. I was surrounded by complete aloneness.
I made a big altar on the table; I decided to be in this space of aloneness. I had a book called ‘meditation and verses’, I read it intensely every day and night.
On Christmas Eve, after having a bath, I went to the church in the town to attend the midnight mass. I don’t know exactly why, something i wanted to close to the holiness.
During the night I had a dream, a nightmare.
In the dream, I felt so jealous, I said to Felipe
‘how dare you, how can you do this to me, go to the hell!’
and I was so angry that with my both hands , with my sharp finger nails, I grabbed Felipe’s chick and took some part of the flesh…..he was bleeding
and he had a face not of Felipe, but of my ex-partner.
And I woke up…. I felt so horrible, that feeling of anger and fear still stayed in my chest.
A second later, a childhood memory came before me.
The very day I saw my father was grabbing my mother’s neck and push her into the blue flame of the gas burner. That darkish, blue, grey light in the room, when everything got darker and darker. I had no memories about the moments before or after. Just that moment when I froze…. Tears rolling down my chick.
‘Oh , no….why?…I am meditating so nicely, ….I am trying to be pure…..why?….again….. ’
I couldn’t stop crying… I started murmuring the verses….
‘Love is the root of truth ..…’
I still couldn’t get rid of these images of the past.
I spoke the verse out loud.
‘Love is…’
I felt that the fear crawled onto my bed. I was crying and speaking the verse at the same time.
‘ONCE UPON A TIME , there was a little girl, she was five years old, ….’
As I started speaking this memory as it was the narrative of a story, I could feel my heartbeat starting to calm down. from the shaky, teary voice to a more grounded voice.
‘When she saw it, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t speak… she is just crying…. She is five years old.’
When I finished I was relaxed…… however, I still couldn’t go back to sleep.
I got up from the bed, sat on a chair, opened my laptop and started to write down the text of that memory. And after I finished, I went back to sleep.
Next morning, when I read it again, I knew that I will weave this story into the performance.
So during the holy nights, I was writing and editing the text.
I made a decision that I was going to share this part of my life… let this story come out into the light, not anymore in the darkness somewhere hide inside me. Because I know that somehow I am not the person from the past anymore. During the last four years with my Eurythmy training, I had put all my energy and time to transform myself.
Maybe I am ready to share a true piece of myself.
Two months later, in Stroud, I am standing on the stage to share this text in a real space, not in my head. I invited people to come and give me feedback so I can develop this show. I was quite nervous, as I know that people would expect a ‘normal’ Eurythmy performance. From the beginning, when I started speaking, some people were already shocked, ‘Eurythmist is speaking!?’
I could already see in the faces of the audience, some people were not liking it… some people are a bit upset.
'I am not good. My English is awful. A woman is sleeping, she got bored’….
My mind was so busy. furthermore in the middle of performing , I heard the inner voice:
‘You will never perform again, this is the last time you are going to perform this’
‘!’
I was so shocked that in the middle of the performance I could be thinking through this sentence!!! Crazy!
Even after the huge applause after the performance, I couldn’t bare it, I was so ashamed. But I managed to say thanks and asked them to write a feedback form.
So many nice feedback: brave, courageous, vulnerable, beautiful…. but one feedback came directly into my heart. :
[very disappointed, I don’t want to be your biography therapist.]
Indeed it was painful. But it gave me the true questions, ‘I want to share a healing story, it is not my intention to make the audience my therapist. So what is wrong? how can I develop it?’
Louis, a Director from Switzerland, came to see my performance, he is a good friend and said he could help me.
‘Nana you have to make it more objective, it is still too subjective.’
So he suggested instead of saying ‘I’, I could say ‘SHE’, make myself a third person.
And he also suggested to set my gaze on the candle from time to time, when it is too much emotions I can use the candle light to come back into peace as a focal point.
A full day of working. The gaze, my gesture, everything. And he suggested to work with a director, who can see all what is happening from the outside.
So after the first feedback performance I realised that I needed some professional help to create this art piece. I contacted teachers and people I knew,
“I need your support to create this show”, the real journey had begun.
A Biographical counselor, a Eurythmy therapist, and a Director, and many more people to support.
Ileana: Biographical counselling
Katherine : Eurythmy therapy
Duncan, Ashley : Rumi Poem
Roi : Storytelling couching - Mythology
Patrick: English pronunciation
Louis: Autobiographical storytelling
Diana, Alfhild: Eurythmy
Andrew : Business consulting
And a very important person, Vasile: Director.
http://nanawoo.wixsite.com/whatislove
Working with Vasile – It was a real therapy and healing art work.
‘You have to come out from yourself. Be objective, it is you but not you anymore’
‘Nana, Don’t make it like cheap drama, cliché. It is too cheap!’
‘Don’t make it too heavy, this is life, life is not so heavy, be creative, be playful’
‘Don’t just repeat the text. Ask the question every time anew, you are already a different person than a second ago’
‘Be real, and the audience will be with you, be true.’
And Vasile was the one that asked Felipe to attend all the rehearsals, he said
‘he is not just a musician, he is a part of the performance.’
And a few months later, he convinced Felipe to recite the Rumi poem !
Another Important part was Biography counselling. We agreed to work seven times, the purpose is to serve my performance, which means that I need to develop myself as a better human. we worked with different materials with artistic approaches. once with clay, once with postcards, once with doll figures which represented each member of my family. One day I was painting to express with colours a memory of my life. I consciously choose to draw that moment about my father and mother in the kitchen, which I was going to tell in the performance.
The task was that after focusing on working subjectively, I had to look at what I have created with objective eyes and reflect what I see.
The last session, she asked me to invite that little girl and if there is anything I want to tell her. I imagined the little Nana, I looked at her and said
‘You will be fine, you know, in twenty years, you will go to England, you have so many beautiful friends, you will live in a beautiful place.’
‘Nana, she is just five years old, she wouldn’t understand …maybe she just need a hug?’
hug?.......
I looked again at my little self, she is frightened, scared…. I hold her hands, pulled to me. Let her sat on my lap and hugged her in my chest. She started to cry, I started to cry…
‘I know, I know…. Now you are okay, you are fine... I am with you’ I embraced her tightly,
In August 2016, six months after the first feedback performance, at the Youth Section summer conference with Shelley Sacks and Ha Vihn Tho, as part of the evening programme, we performed the new version of ‘What is Love?’, after working with different mentors. I didn't hear that voice of insecurity and self judgement.
We have performed 31 times during the last three years,
We have traveled to 13 different countries to share it,
We have met so many amazing people and beautiful audiences.
Every comment from the people always nourished us.
A young man was crying for 20 minutes saying that he just broke up with her scorpion girlfriend.
One said she had a similar childhood experience, thank me for sharing my story,
One said her ex-husband was scorpion and winked at me.
One said her parents just got divorced, and it was healing for her.
Every single encounter, I will remember.
I could tell my little girl, thank you for all your sacrifice.
April 2017, a performance during the YIP initiative forum in Sweden.
It was a very special performance. I had been attending this forum for the last 5 years, as there were full of inspiring young people from all over the world who would like to engage themselves to create a better world. I was 25 years old when I participated for the first time and now I was 30 years old. Some people we knows each other very well, some only the face, I felt that we have grown up together.
After finishing the performance, those shining eyes, some faces I love, I know well, I know a little bit, they all stood up and applauded endlessly.. .. ‘time doesn’t matter’… moment… …. They kept clapping with huge energy… I couldn’t hold my tears anymore...
That very moment, I felt that the little girl had died, and she started to stretch her body and open her huge white wings…….. and became my guardian angel…. I felt something was fulfilled.
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And now, I am in the situation which asking myself if it is the time to let go of this story.
My identity: Domestic childhood. Painful stories…
Maybe My cyst wants to say:
‘Now I am no longer needed, I am done with my task, I will go. But before that, you have to let me go.’
Yesterday Briany said:
‘Of course I would like to see your performance, and I can see that people love your performance and want to see it again and again, BUT is it good for you? Is this still serving you? You don’t need to answer, just think about it. Somehow I am glad that I didn’t see your performance, as I want to see the new performance with new story with new Nana in it.’
Maybe time to let go of the old identity.
So that the new can come.
To live life, it is such an amazing art work.
P.S: Thank you for being part of this performance,
audience, musicians, organisers, film makers, photographers
and my manager, musician, stage decorator Felipe.
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