the project

In Dreamline mothership INC  an enchanted stewardess takes the audience on a journey in the mothership – a guided meditation, a fantastic sci-fi voyage into the cosmic womb, the mythological origin of the universe. On the mothership the audience is transported through a cosmic vaginal pathway, passing several portals which open and deepen the journey towards one’s own intimacy and pleasure in order to generate a dream conception. The cosmic womb is interpreted as a black hole in the universe from which all dreams can be conceived and birthed into being. The story unfolds through spoken text, which sometimes becomes a song and a dance, accompanied by a celestial soundtrack created by Laryssa Kim. Inspired by somatic practices, where one is often guided through words into bodily states, this guided sci-fi journey is blurring genres between guided mediation, somatic scores, workshop, ritual and lecture-performance.

This project is experimenting with collective induction of imagination through the magical properties of spoken words, such as in prayer, invocations or spells. How can words affect bodies, trigger sensations, cause shifts in perception and even invite altered states of consciousness? Inspired by rituals, throughout this session, the audience is invited to access their own imageries connected to this sci-fi feminist mythology and guided to receive their own dream-oracle.

Research

The narrative of the journey into the womb, is a fictionalised and futuristic version of rituals of regeneration, inspired by ancient Egyptian rebirthing ceremonies, whereby participants were guided into the tombs to stay in complete darkness for a certain amount of time. These tombs and caves under the earth represented the womb and vagina, as a sort of channel in and out of this world. In these rituals individuals were guided into rebirthing processes, letting their old identities die by being nearly buried alive. After shedding their old skin, they emerged new born.

As a collective it seems we are moving through a parallel moment – an intense process of shedding old skins, identities, ideologies, body images, etc. The metaphor of the womb, the cave or the black hole, to absorb, let die and transmute identifications that no longer serve us, inspires an animist understanding of the cycles of life and death, that the natural world and human beings are constantly undergoing.

Womb and vagina are here understood as archetypes of the collective unconscious, as symbols for the cycle of life, birth, transformation, death, rebirth. The mysterious quality of caves and holes, dark places, have been often feared and avoided, while in dark places all life sprouts into being. In the present moment of fundamental changes, the ancient myth of the womb is being reawakened into a futuristic version, reminding us, that our bodies and pleasures are gates and spaceships to ‘birth’ our dreams and navigate through transformation.

This imagination can be accessed by all bodies, beyond binary interpretations of gender, opening up to dream-rebirthing bodies, life-forms, ways of living, beyond what we thought was possible. Conception and birthing are here referred to as processes of creation. The image of a space-traveling mothership offers a spiraling counter-movement to linear patriarchal structures. The futuristic mother is a spaceship, whose engine is driven by pleasure energy, guiding us into a collective rebirthing from the cosmic womb.

Podcast

The audio version of Dreamline Mothership INC. Listening instructions: reserve 1 hour for the experience, be warm and comfortable in an intimate setting without disturbance. Have a paper and a pencil ready. Enjoy!

Direction, concept, text and voice: Helena Dietrich, Music and editing: Laryssa Kim, Voice Mothership: Castelie Yalombo. Recorded in the studio of Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek, with the support of VGC, production by Hiros.