What? She, a mother?

Responding to the widely discussed decline in birth rates, the work shifts attention away from demographic discourse toward the lived experiences of individual women. Between May and August 2024, we conducted research on local reproductive experiences in Chengdu, Sichuan, which informed the creation of a performance combining documentary materials, such as audio and video recordings of different mothers, with fictionalized theatrical structures.

Performed by us, the piece explores varied positions toward motherhood, childbearing, and childlessness. By foregrounding embodied narratives and personal testimonies often marginalized in public debate, the work aims to open a reflective space on how reproductive choices are shaped by social expectations, care responsibilities, and structural inequalities.

As the first public presentation within this long-term project, the work reflects an early stage of our collective practice. While still exploratory in form, it laid the groundwork for our ongoing investigation into socially engaged theater and the social expectations, care labor, and gendered structures shaping women’s experiences in contemporary China.

The performance was selected for ‘1998–2024 Rewriting Theatre History, Archival Exhibition of Contemporary Performing Arts in China’, Nanjing, 2024.