SELF-HELP This booklet is a gift for those who relate to the concept of this performance and wish to take a little token home. Prepare for reflection, shameless self-indulgence and perhaps a little singing. My motivation is the context and the people that surround me, for this reason I will mostly focus on new aspiring artists and their journey towards building a life. Being ambitious and seeking a career has become a battlefield between success and self-care. Having this constant sensation that you stopped to take a breath and the world did not wait for you. More and more of my colleagues start to talk about anxiety and depression as a standard way to exist, and therefore seek to fix themselves in order to increase productivity. We want to fix our very own existence. We look for books, gurus, meditation, medication... because somehow along the way we realize that we are not enough if we want to be part of this globalization apocalypse we have built. I want to open a dialogue to speak about what is happening to us in reflection of the past. SELF-HELP: how to make babies, have a career and eat organic is a research in the shape of a self-help book trapped in the confine- ments of a movement per- formance. It tells us the story of the ridiculous expectations of com- ing-of-age in radical sa- tirical observations. It demythologizes the sub- jects of immigration, un- employment, and sex-based social structures by shar- ing personal anecdotes from nomad aspiring art- ists and gender-noncon- forming feminists. I believe the goals for this would be to reframe our contemporary relation- ship to the concept of normality within routine and work ethic stand- ards, for which I have zero grounds to do so, but I will regardless. My re- search is purely based on experience and passion for narrative and materi- ality of it. I invite you however to navigate this piece if information and perhaps relate to it. Throughout the three major topics we will ques- tion the common denominator is always the human being. Its position on a physical, social and political level, hence the subtitle for this pieces- “how to make babies, have a career and eat organic”. Prologue CHAPTER 1 ... not yet. I see you standing small in a cold room with a ridiculous pink outfit on. Your mother is talking to the elegant woman with her hair pushed back. You are scared but exited. You have been asking for this for a long time. I see a teenager who wants to move. Your friend brought you here so you might as well stay and try the class. Later in your life you will find out dance is not just this and the world will be your oyster. Is it a trap? Is in a form of escapism? Is it happiness? Is it worth your life? CHAPTER 1 THE DREAM Let’s start CHAPTER 2 HALF AGONY, HALF HOPE This text was turned into a song called "It's Been Years" in collaboration with Maas van Gogh. We work part times to pay for training for po- tential auditions that we can't afford, because we also pay rent and food. We enter this loop of constant work and no actual living. Energy is limited. Living becomes something of a choice, so you start prioritising and no matter what you choose the choice is always wrong. So if you do want to dance, you take jobs for free meaning that by now you are lit- erally working to pay for work. Work that you studied for, suffered for, destroyed your body for in a generalizing institutionalized educa- tion that you also worked several part time jobs to afford... And then the government let- ters start to pour. You are not registered, pay up! To be registered, you need a 1000 a month for a shitty room in a very expensive city, because it is your last resource to having a network. And you need a network, because being in companies is either hard to achieve or too confining, if you are not only a dancer but also an artist and you feel this inconsolable burn to create something. No matter how shitty and meaningless and a complete copy of what your friends told you to like, because that sells. And if you try to make something actually new or substantial, movement is not enough and you are not enough. Between part times, inconsist- ent training, a poor diet and the attempt to actually live, all the years you put into your body are now in the trash, and your body hurts. And now you live in a foreign country, your mother doesn't sleep at night and your cat dies. Which is fine because it is not like they remembered you anymore. It's been years since you left to pursue this fucking drea... CHAPTER 3 SUSTAINABILITY OF PLANET, WALLET AND BODY. Eat organic I take about 6 flights per year I shower twice a day everyday I buy instant food wrapped in platic 6 tmes a week thats 24 per month thats 288 per year Times 7.888 billion people on earth I eat meat once week in the netherlands and everyday in portugal I buy about 2 pair of shows per year, times 7.888 billion Recipe for mug cake Prep: 2 min Cook: 3,5 min - 1 big mug or bowl - 1 soup spoon - 1 egg - 4 spoons of flour - 2 spoons of sugar - 1 spoon of oil - 3 spoons of chocolate powder - 1 coffee size spoon of baking powder or get raising flour Add milk slowly and don’t make it too liquid. Put it in the microwave for 3,5 minutes. Sing a song. Pet cat. Eat right away otherwise it’s trash. CHAPTER 2 HOW TO MAKE BABIES Or not. At least not yet. Now that I have your attention I can begin to talk about the urgency of topics like gender roles and hormonal/bodily issues and their rela- tionship with physical intellectual practices such as dance(I hope).In which I remind you that the brain is part of the body meaning that I include anxiety, depression and panic disorders as physical conditions that influence the practice of physical activities. Or maybe we stay in denial, close all doors and allow these to slowly eat us up. Make it a stand- ard. Do a little pathetic sad happy dance. How to make sure you have a career and stability in the next 10 years so that you can have children before you are 40. How to perform the act of womanhood as the spectrum it is. How to navigate the world as a woman in a patriar- chal systemized field where your artistic choices are preestablished through the male gaze and your opions are overlooked at first glance... and where all female bosses are called a 'bitch' instead of 'assertive' which makes you afraid to actually express yourself without any embelishe- ment additions to your behaviour. How to stay and how to go. How to make friends in your field without networking. How to be an immigrant and fillout government paperwork. How to deal with body dysmorphia. How to make a dance performance with movement that also express your concept in every way that comes natural to you and to it. How to adress gender and sex and its differences, without opression and eye rolling. How to rest the right amount of time that compen- sates for guilt. How to exercise and practice enough without inju- ries or hormonal issues, like losing your period or eating enough to keep up with the work load. How to stay soft and kind. Hows to how In a self-help book this is the part where your affirmation would come... I leave you with a poem from a person that no longer exists for they are much happier and in love with life. I want my 20’s back. I want the years that were stolen from me. I want to come home from work, not home to work more. I don’t want to look for a house anymore, I don’t want to live every month somewhere else, hostels, other people's couches... I want a respectful income and work hours that end when I sleep or eat. I want to go out, dance for hours and do all kind of drugs my friends keep talking about. Sit with you at 7 am in my kitchen floor and eat take out maybe have sex and fall asleep right there. I want to Kiss a stranger, get into a fight, discover a new song and turn it into an anthem or a private joke. I want to go to the park all day and read a book, make a painting or take mushrooms, Meet other artists, talk to these strangers, and turn them into friends Not answer emails for week without throwing my entire life away. I want to get out of bed every day with a sense of purpose. I want to be uncomfortable inside the 4 walls of my room. I want it to be claustrophobic. But it's not If I could lay in bed all day without eating I would. And If could watch every single shit the world offers me on Netflix I would. If could cut showers, pee breaks, social breaks... I would, Because I miss existing I miss being in the moment and acknowledging it. I want my 20’s back Acknowledgements Concept: Margarida Constantino Dance: Rodrigo Ribeiro and Margarida Constantino Production: Magnezy Dance Productions Live music composition: Rodrigo Ribeiro Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana by Pietro Maacagni Original song writing: ‘It’s Been Years’ by Margarida in collaboration with Maas Van Gogh Dramaturgy and movement coaching: Hans Timmerman and Katarzyna Sitars Booklet: Margarida Constantino Supported by LeineRoebana Dance Company And thank you to my friends and family.