Olivia Mitchel
To a Life: A dance film exploring the dynamic process of pregnancy
Project Description
The summer after my sophomore year of college, I had the opportunity to shadow physicians in La Paz, Bolivia through Child Family Health International with a grant from Stanford's Haas Center for Public Service. This was by far my most life-changing and career-affirming experience to date. It was fascinating to immerse myself in a different culture and become familiar with a medical setting outside of the United States. One of the most meaningful moments for me was witnessing my first live birth. The intensity in the room made the experience truly powerful and emotional. This experience sparked my interest in maternal-fetal medicine. I am fascinated by the beauty and precision of the entire process that encompasses conception, gestation, and childbirth.
After returning from Bolivia for my junior year, I joined the Winn lab at Stanford, an Ob-Gyn lab, as a research assistant. The lab studies the human placenta and its role in healthy and complicated pregnancies. Initially, my work consisted of on-call shifts during which I collected placentas from the hospital immediately after deliveries and brought them back to the lab to collect tissue and blood samples. It was exciting to work at the intersection of clinical medicine and laboratory science. With the transition to remote research at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I shifted my focus to literature review and data analysis. Through my work, I’ve developed an appreciation for how many little things need to go right in order for a pregnancy to be successful, beginning at the early stages of implantation. Furthermore, the fetus represents a foreign invader to the mother, and yet the female body has developed incredibly sophisticated mechanisms to avoid rejection, facilitated by the immune system. I am on the Microbes and Immunity track within the biology major, so it has been particularly fulfilling to study the immune mechanisms involved in pregnancy.
In addition to the scientific component, I also see so much beauty in the emotional aspect of bringing life into the world. I frequently think about becoming a mom and how much the pregnancy process will mean to me if I am lucky enough to experience it. The connection between a mother and her baby is so unique in that it begins to develop while the baby is still in utero. When I set out to pursue this project, I aimed to explore the dynamic between the biological, physical, and psychological aspects of pregnancy.
I conducted and recorded interviews with 12 mothers from ages 27-63 to collect commentary on personal experiences with pregnancy and childbirth. I was touched by the honesty and vulnerability each woman shared. These interviews yielded an incredibly rich pool of material which served as the inspiration for the creative aspects of my project. I used a combination of choreographed and improvised contemporary dance to react and respond to these narratives, focusing on varying the quality of my movement to match the tone of the content. I also used movement to illustrate the embodied human experience and emphasize the ways in which our bodies can both support and hinder us, particularly in such a dynamic process as pregnancy. I find that dance helps me express feelings and ideas that are difficult to communicate with language.
My musical composition, carried by the powerful voices of my interviewees, features piano and electronics. I also played with the concept of sound registered by the fetus in the womb, including fetal recognition of the mother’s voice, as well as the sound of the fetal heartbeat.
While pregnancy is a universal experience, no two pregnancies are exactly alike. I recognize that for the duration of the piece, I am holding space as one white woman who has never been pregnant. My intention with this project is to honor a wide range of perspectives while acknowledging that there is no single story of pregnancy. To a Life simply captures my own physical and emotional interpretation of 12 women's stories.
My hope is that this film will be accessible and engaging to anyone who has ever been born!
About the Artist
Olivia is a graduating senior in Biology with a minor in Creative Writing. Born and raised in San Francisco, Olivia studied classical piano in the Pre-College division at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She trained in ballet, tap, jazz, and contemporary dance throughout childhood. These creative outlets have enabled Olivia to form meaningful connections with others. Ultimately, Olivia hopes to use her creativity, empathy, and communication skills to pursue a career in medicine, providing care for patients from all walks of life. For the next two years, Olivia will be working full-time in an OB/GYN research lab in the Stanford School of Medicine while applying to medical school.
Explore Olivia's project online
