Thursday 28 January 2016

Mum's The Word

Cecilia Moisio


It all starts in the womb; it is the first bond to be formed.  Cecilia Moisio’s, on her work Mum’s The Word, focus on the most basic form of love: the relationship between mother and daughter. I had the opportunity to see the première of this very intense performance on the 3rd of October 2015 in the Nederlandse Dansdagen, a dance festival in Maastricht.




Cecilia Moisio’s, in this peculiar work, transformed the stage into a home, always in constant mutation and filled with personal stories and memories, where she tells the story of four generations of women and their relationship. In this physical theatre piece, she opted for a more narrative approach, putting four very expressive female dancers using speech and pedestrian movement, always according to the context of the scene and in complete harmony with the music and scenario.

Cecilia Moisio, known for developing works concerning human psychology and unconscious human behaviour, shows us, in this extremely visual piece the two sides of this relationship: the love and also the struggle. As the work piece continues to develop, you can notice the evolution in this connection between mother and daughter with a strong emphasis on the growth and intensification of these struggles. As an audience you can clearly see that Moisio’s focused on the emotional inheritance passed from generation to generation and the way this influences our behaviour and our own vision of the world. Throughout time, the piece acquires a darker and darker tone without the choreographer being afraid of revealing and dealing with taboos such as manipulation, jealousy and hidden rivalry that grows more and more, as time passes, within this relationship.

It was impressive to see how further she went into developing this theme. Nothing was left to chance, everything was worked up to the last detail, within this very dark, cruel and cold atmosphere that fit the theme perfectly. She wasn’t afraid of showing to us public how toxic this relationship mother/daughter can be, and she did it perfectly. And even if you, as public, don’t relate personally to this kind of relationship it is possible to connect with some key episodes that she presents to us, such as the struggle of the mother, to make her daughter sit and eat with proper manners, and the daughter’s struggle for independence.

I found it very difficult to stay indifferent to the theme. Seeing this beautiful and at the same time painful performance, makes you enter into their own world and live, with the performers, the story, the struggles, the pain and the love, experiences that are part of everyone’s life and with which, I am sure, anyone can relate to. 




Concept, choreography and direction: Cecilia Moisio 
Performers: Arnica Elsendoorn, Sylvia Poorta, Soosan Gilson, Katarzyna Sitarz and Yulia Kalinchenko 
Video and light design: Mark Thewessen 
Set Design: Malin Moisio 
Music: Joni Vanhanen 
Advice acting: Vincent Wijlhuizen 
Artistic advice: Suzy Blok 
Technique: Marcel Slagter 
Production/tour management: Hit Me Productions​
Publicity: Lisa Reinheimer, Lisette Brouwer 
Coach Singing: Ineke van Doorn
Costumes: Margot Koudstaal a.o.
Photography: Jamain Brigitha – Associatives & Jochem Jurgens


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