Mothertongue is a dance film that sheds light on the shared and personal experiences of parenthood. It speaks truthfully to the often dark and multilayered narratives, whilst celebrating the sheer power and moments of incomparable joy. It seeks to challenge the expectations of how a mother can behave, and explores the often unspoken emotions, unpaid labour, physical transitions, guilt, rage, sexuality, isolation and unrealistic expectations. It is intimate, contradictory and unapologetic. 

The director and mother Darcy Wallace says: I am currently building a body of work that explores the transitional experience of motherhood. Starting from a position of lived experience, I am collecting and creating verbal and physical responses out of the complex and ever changing experience of parenting. 

This work is an urgent interrogation into the consequences of our neglect and lack of recognition of the maternal experience, and the patriarchal and capitalist systems that uphold this. 

I will continue to develop this work with intergenerational movement practitioners who are mothers. Centering a methodology of care, working through informal workshops, interviews and performance for theatre with collaborators. I felt compelled to explore and share these ideas in the form of a film as a place to begin or continue these thoughts and conversations around the relentless and often imbalanced and unsupported frameworks for parenting.

I have been deeply inspired by the novel Matrescence by Lucy Jones which speaks to the psychological shifts during pregnancy/parenthood, and draws on new research across various fields - neuroscience and evolutionary biology; psychoanalysis and existential therapy; sociology, economics and ecology. 

It was important and a feat of its own working with a team of mothers to create this film. Catering to different care responsibilities and schedules and factoring in childcare contributions to the budget was a crucial part of the making the work - and is what the work is about.
It was wonderful to work with and share in these conversations with DP Zoë Que (who’s baby attended many meetings and location recce’s) as well as the incredible cast Steph Mcmann, Temitope Ajose and Hannah Shepherd who are each at different points of their own mothering journeys, and offered so much vulnerability and trust to the project.