At Snug Harbor Tonight: These Are The Bodies That Have Not Borne – Interview Maria Bauman, Founder, Choreographer
Editor’s note: We covered a recent CUNY Dance Initiative performance at Snug Harbor, Dancers Unlimited: REST.
On Staten Island, at Snug Harbor Cultural Center, a weekend of free flowing dance performances is set to occur. Titled the Snug Harbor Cultural Center Dance Festival, regional and national performers and artists will come together for a contemporary dance celebration. This event marks ten years of artistic exploration and supporting the NYC dance field by the CUNY Dance Initiative.
We discuss with Maria Bauman, the founder of MBDance, the performance and what she hopes the audience will come away with. These are the bodies that have not borne. is an exploration through dance of the lived experiences of those who have not borne children. It can be because they cannot, or perhaps they have chosen not to, but everyone’s experience is so different. This performance, and the associated Zine, seek to weave together these experiences into an expression of all of the feelings that can go with it. We talked about expectations, whether of parents, grandparents, siblings, and others who have set timelines of when certain things should happen. When they don’t go as planned or expected, that can lead to feelings of being under pressure, of being inadequate, and so much more.
We also talked about some of the experiences of being born female, and of being in a body on this planet at this time. One thing that many might find unique about Maria is that she enjoys the experience of being in a body, that she loves being in a body. She feels connected to those who came before, including her grandfather, but she also feels connected to herself in a way that most people in our culture do not ordinarily express. When most of us think of our body, we think of issues with it, problems, and inconveniences. Menstruating is itself a taboo subject in our culture, even still to this day, though it has much improved from the days when mothers did not discuss reproductive topics with their daughters. They were left, in many cases, though certainly not all, to figure it out on their own.
Maria mentioned that those who are born female can suffer from all types of reproductive disorders, most of which are still not well understood by the medical system. While we have come a long way from the myth and diagnosis of the “hysterical woman,” there is still much progress to be made. People who have conditions such as endometriosis, fibroids, polyps, dysmenorrhea, heavy bleeding, and others simply don’t talk about it. Most people are not aware of how to treat such conditions, or that there are, in fact, ways to treat them non-pharmaceutically. We have covered in the past how life-changing dietary changes can be, and in the instance of reproductive health, this is also true. Many individuals who have changed their diet in the ways suggested in the hearing on healthy aging (Plant-Based or Plant-Forward Pescatarian with a heavy focus on whole, fresh, and cooked from scratch foods) find that many of the health conditions that they thought were irreversible (and even had given up on) will spontaneously disappear. This has happened in so many instances, but as Rabbi Bernhard pointed out, this doesn’t happen for everyone.
There is also little discussion in our society about the experience of childbirth (or menstruation even) for trans people, particularly trans men. These individuals still have to contend with menstruation, which is often made more difficult by the use of hormone therapy. The experience of these individuals is vastly different than of cis gender females, but it is not discussed. As was mentioned in our interview about Medicaid cuts where we touched on research that was recently canceled that was designed to explore the experiences of a minority group of LGBTQIA individuals, Paula mentioned that when you don’t listen to people’s stories and what they are going through, they can feel like they are invisible.
This dance performance, as well as the Zine, are focused on bringing such experiences out of the shadows, allowing the audience to experience them cathartically, shining light on the lived journey of the dance performers, as they work to express what it means to give birth, and how it feels as one who has not borne children.
We also covered midwifery care in a previous interview. What most people do not know is that midwives can also provide similar care to that provided by a gynecologist, but they often have a more holistic view of the female reproductive system. They offer well-care, fertility guidance, and other types of assistance outside of just during pregnancy and childbirth. The dance performance also features a midwife, who acts as the caretaker to the performers in the piece. Midwifery, a practice which was nearly lost as conventional medicine became the sole providers of maternity care, continues to expand in scope and availability, and it is often covered by insurance. In some states, there is a pathway to midwifery certification that involves experience and apprenticeship, but in New York, all midwives must obtain a Master’s Degree in order to legally practice (and not be subject to the possibility of jail time – which really happened in NY to several midwives providing care to the Amish and Mennonite communities Upstate). Even midwives themselves have, in many cases, not borne their own children.
Below are links readers may find helpful, including the link to buy tickets and more about the Zine:
Here is a link to an Instagram reel of flipping through a few pages of the ‘zine: https://tinyurl.com/MBDanceInsta
Below is information about the event provided by CUNY Dance Initiative and MBDance:
The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI), an expansive program providing New York City choreographers and dance companies with creative residencies on CUNY college campuses, announces the world premiere of These are the bodies that have not borne., a site-specific performance by MBDance at the upcoming Snug Harbor Dance Festival. Performances are Saturday, August 23 and Sunday, August 24 at 6pm at Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden, 1000 Richmond Terrace, Staten Island. Admission is pay-what-you-wish, with a suggested donation between $10-30. Get tickets here.
These are the bodies that have not borne. combines land art, choreography, original music, soil ecologies, and ritual. It is a reckoning and a healing offering that is a collective and individual somatic processing of unrequited desires and inherent worth in our bodies and livelihoods. Performers will submerge themselves in portals dug into the ground, literally dancing out of the Earth, provoking images and questions of burial, re-birth and of Earth as first parent. These are the bodies that have not borne. is choreographed and directed by Maria Bauman, assisted by Audrey Hailes. Mankwe Ndosi contributes original music, and it will be performed by a cast of seven: Graciella Ye’Tsunami, Rochelle Jamila, AJ Wilmore, Angel Edwards, Myssi Robinson, Audrey Hailes and Maria Bauman. As a companion, MBDance also offers a self-published ‘zine,’ These are the bodies that have not borne. a whisper. a seed. an archive. – centering Black, queer, and trans experiences surrounding reproductive health and family building. Pre-orders are available here.
These are the bodies that have not borne. has been developed with the support of a PASS and Dance Festival residency at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden/Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art, in partnership with the CUNY Dance Initiative.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Maria Bauman founded MBDance in 2009. MBDance creates honest and bold art from a sense of physical and emotional power, centering the non-linear and linear stories and bodies of queer people of color, using dance as the wheel whose spokes are other genres including visual art, text, and song.
After dancing with Urban Bush Women, as well as serving as Director of Education Community Engagement and Associate Artistic Director, Bauman began creating dance works as a freelance choreographer. She formed her company to further amplify her unique creative point of view and to support dancers in honing the particular blend of physical risk and athleticism, Capoeira-esque floorwork and spatiality, emphasis on race and equity, and willingness to investigate intimacy that Bauman’s work excels within.
MBDance recently premiered (re)Source for four sold-out nights via co-commission between The Chocolate Factory and BAAD!. Among other honors, MBDance is a current BRIClab and Redtail Arts awarded resident company and Bauman is one of only a handful of choreographers across the nation who are honored as Urban Bush Women National Choreographic Center Fellows. MBDance has also earned 2017-19 Brooklyn Arts Exchange Artist in Residence, CUNY Dance Initiative Residencies in both 2014 and 2015, Harlem Stage Funds for New Work via The Jerome Foundation in both 2013-14 and 2009-10, a 2010-11 Dance Theater Workshop (now NYLA) Studio Series and Art Mill creative residencies in 2012 and in 2010.
MBDance has performed across the world, from NYC SummerStage to Singapore to the My Body My Space Festival in Mpumalanga, South Africa.
ABOUT THE SNUG HARBOR DANCE FESTIVAL
The Snug Harbor Dance Festival is a two-day event celebrating contemporary dance across the organization’s historical 83-acre campus. This dynamic, site-specific festival features performances by local and regional choreographers, including MBDance, Moriah Evans, Amelia Heintzelman, and Maker Park Radio. The Snug Harbor Dance Festival is supported by the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the Governor and New York State Legislature, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Howard Gilman Foundation, and through generous support by John Robinson.
ABOUT THE CUNY DANCE INITIATIVE
The CUNY Dance Initiative (CDI) marked a decade of supporting the NYC dance field in 2024. The program was developed in response to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s 2010 report, “We Make Do,” which cited how destabilizing the shortage of affordable rehearsal space in New York City is to the dance sector. A successful pilot supporting residencies on four CUNY campuses in 2013 led to CDI’s formal launch in 2014. Since then, CDI has become a key player in New York City’s performing arts ecosystem, leading a consortium of 14 CUNY colleges and four arts organizations to host 20+ residencies for NYC choreographers and dance companies each year. In the past 11 years, CDI has granted 275 residencies to emerging and established choreographers, providing invaluable resources to artists, while enhancing CUNY students’ education and cultural experiences.
The CUNY Dance Initiative receives major support from The Mertz Gilmore Foundation and Howard Gilman Foundation. Additional support is provided by the SHS Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s Charles E. Culpeper Arts & Culture program, and the Harkness Foundation for Dance. CDI is spearheaded by The Kupferberg Center for the Arts at Queens College. www.cuny.edu/danceinitiative
FUNDING CREDITS
These are the bodies that have not borne. is supported by multiple sources and partners including Dance/NYC’s Dance Advancement Fund, made possible by the Howard Gilman Foundation and the Ford Foundation. This work was made possible by the Jacki Apple Fund, administered by Franklin Furnace, in memory of Jacki Apple’s contributions to the New York community since the early 1980s through her writing, teaching, radio shows, and artistic practice. Several residencies and centers allowed for the development of These are the bodies that have not borne., including PASS and Dance Festival residency at Snug Harbor Cultural Center and Botanical Garden/Newhouse Center for Contemporary Art in partnership with the CUNY Dance Initiative, The Field Center in Vermont, Bearnstow in Maine and Feathertail Farm in Hudson, NY.
MBDance has received additional support and partnership for These are the bodies that have not borne. from the RESIST Foundation, CUNY Dance Initiative, A Blade of Grass Field Funds, Brooklyn Arts Council, the BAAD! Queer Art Exchange, the Kresge Foundation, the NYFA Mertz Gilmore Foundation Dancer Award and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Artist-in-Residence program, and individual donors Chikako Yamauchi and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar.
Banner Image: Performance graphic. Image Credit – MBDance/Snug Harbor
Staten Islander News Service Staff Writer
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