Written By: Maddie Christensen

On day 3 of the Fringe, I received the chance to go see the performance of Everything I See I Swallow by Shasha and Taylor Productions. At first, I was a little hesitant to go to a production like this because it talks about feminism. I get rather uncomfortable and usually keep to myself if this gets brought up. I don’t know enough about it to be able to fully grasp this type of performance. But I was able to understand some. Also, it was shown in the form of an Aerial performance. An aerial performance is performed with ropes and the performer using ways with the rope to twist and turn; sit and stand.

This performance got me out of my comfort zone with how much nudity and explicit language there is. It tells you that you can be in control of your body, feel comfortable talking about it, and the ways that you practice loving yourself. That is how the feminist theme takes place throughout. It tells us that you should be in charge of you own body, rather than having the people who THINK its beautiful have free reign over it. If they do, you need to change and help others love themselves as well. Just like what the daughter did to her mother. The mother wasn’t in control of her own body and it was driving her mad inside at what the daughter was doing in order to love herself. But eventually they patched up their relationship through Japanese bondage and aerial swinging.

The actresses did a really good job at performing their characters, but they were jumping around a lot. When it came to the daughter, she was happy with herself one minute. And then hating herself the next. Then it jumps to the mother being angry with her. What the actresses don’t really do is explain whats happening during the transition. Some other parts of the performance were confusing as well. Many times during the performance, they would go to the microphone on the left, and say their own monologue. The monologue would consist of them saying their own thoughts. But it seemed like their thoughts were way past the point they were trying to make happen in the previous scenes. So it made me think that I might have missed something.

I would definitely go see it again and recommend to others who feel that they need to get back the control of their own body and be comfortable with themselves. I think that this performance really matters and targets our younger girls who are out there with low self-esteem and people telling them what they should do with their own body. It can even older women fighting their own battles with self-esteem. A key phrase that I remembered was, “anybody can identify as anything in order to be a feminist”. I think that’s true for anything that you want to be in general. It doesn’t have to be being a feminist.

There was a song that was sung at the end by both of them, “she sings knowing she has wings” Everyone is allowed to say what they need to say, and spread their wings, knowing that they can do it. We sometimes just need someone to listen to us.