Imagine my distress when at the tender age of 9, my mum presents me with this the night before my school gymnastics display! Despite being very much a young girl I remember being horrified as A. it was white (which meant totally see through), B. flowers depicted my yet to develop breasts and C. the delicate design she had created seemed to emerge from some kind of Eve-like leafage at my crutch and D. (which was the most mortifying) I now had no time to switch to plan B.
During rehearsals Lorraine asked us if we could remember when we first became body conscious. We easily recounted experiences of puberty but then suddenly the memory of this leotard came back to me. It was a different experience of being body conscious as what I remembered was having all these thoughts about how it related to the sexuality of the body but then not voicing them. It was like a private internal dialogue which I hoped no one else could hear. I questioned if others could or would see what I had seen.
I felt embarrassed to say that was how it made me feel and so I wore it. All the time being very conscious of how I was being viewed. It was very different to my body awareness experiences as a teenager, these seemed more triggered by external voices or images and I was able to express my response in some outward form. This in contrast was a very private experience, a kind of first awakening to an internal knowing of the sensual life of the body.
Silversmith Dance Theatre 