Natalie
Natalie Bellingham is a theatre maker, performer and physical comedian.
Her mum died in 2020.
“There’s a moment I've played with where I sit and look at the audience and I play the sound of the sea.
I worried that it felt a bit trite. A bit empty - or worse, boring.
But I knew it wasn't empty. It was incredibly full, I just wasn’t saying any words.
It was a new thing for me: making something that looks quite sparse, creating a space where I felt like I was screaming everything I wanted to say, but that was actually very quiet and still.
It fascinated me how much people took from these moments. And creating a moment of theatre that I wasn’t entirely in control of made me ask ‘Where am I comfortable?’
At the moment, I feel like I’m looking at my experience through a murky window. I know the next step for me is to go deeper. To share from the other side of that window.
And I know that will be uncomfortable.
I’ve started doing more movement and dance. Connecting to my body in a different way.
I can try to be poetic with language, but if that’s not your way or if you’re not coming from the same place as me it can get lost. With movement, people can connect on a really guttural level.
I’ve been consumed by somebody else’s life for so long. And all of a sudden it’s gone. I kept saying “I don’t know what to do with this space.”
The more I went into this material, it became quite clear that I was beginning to make a show about the space left behind by loss. That loss could be a parent or it could be a pet. It could be a job or a relationship.
In this latest version, I use metaphor and movement and I don’t mention my mum. I think the minute I did, it would make everything very small. And it’s bigger than that now.
Some of the text revolves around a beached whale.
I can’t move it. I’m desperately trying to get it back in the sea before it dies and I don’t know how.
This whale has changed the way the sea moves. The way it sounds. It’s changed the horizon. It’s there and I can’t do anything about it.
The more I played with it, it became clear it was about me as well as my mum. About being stuck.
I only know one way of being. It’s not very healthy. I have to change it. And I’m not good at change. I’ve made my bed and I’ll lie in it.
“At the moment, I feel like I’m looking at my experience through a murky window.
I know the next step for me is to go deeper. To share from the other side of that window.”
Now I’m thinking about the drama that was brought to my world by other people. What’s me? What’s their crap? The unmeshing of a person. I’m sorting through all these strands.
But I’m also saying ‘I don’t want to get rid of that one - even though it was created by sadness or trauma. I don’t want to let that go.’
My mum was inconsistent and frightening and love and joy and time and damage all mixed up. She was charismatic and she was a nightmare and she fucking loved dancing.
When she wasn’t there, there were no excuses any more. No one to look after or to worry about or to explain myself to.
It feels like a kind of freedom although it isn’t one I asked for. And it came at a cost.
I’d do anything to have her back. But I’m not entirely sure there’d be room for her.
There’s an awful lot of space left behind that I’m going to have to fill with me.”
Find out more about Natalie’s work-in-progress Look After Your Knees here.
Written by Laura McDonagh