The Zulu Birth Project is a multinational initiative to reach across time and borders to share ancient birthing practices in support of mothers-to-be. Through a series of workshops and consciousness-raising events, they are looking to share the ancient practices of meditation, breath work and yoga nidra.
The Project is hosting a weekend-long staging of Karen Brody’s Birth. It’s been performed all over the world and is evidently being referred to as “the Vagina Monologues of birth.” The play is a series of narratives that moves between first-person monologues to dialogue including the actual voices of women on the day they gave birth. The program tells the true stories of 8 women in order to bring together a picture of what it’s like for low-risk, educated women give birth in America today. There’s humor. There’s sadness. There’s joy.
According to the press release, playwright Karen Brody wrote the play because she, “couldn’t believe the way women were being treated during pregnancy and in the labor and delivery rooms.”
Karen Brody’s Birth is being staged Aug. 29 - Sept. 1 at UWM’s Kenilworth Studio 508 on 1925 E. Kenilworth Place. For more information on the show and the Zulu Birth Project, visit the Project online.
