Pregnant Pause: A Variety Show about Pop Culture and Pregnancy

Join us on June 3rd at 7:00 pm at the Bell House in Brooklyn for Pregnant Pause: A Variety Show about Pop Culture and Pregnancy. Doors and Silent Auction open at  6:30pm.

Come explore where pop culture intersects with being pregnant. Our performers will deconstruct depictions of pregnancy and choices people make in film, television, stand-up, & more! This show has something for everyone: horror, drama, comedy, and romance, all brought to you in variety show fashion by your hosts Bonnie & Maude.

*Special Guest Gillian Robespierre will discuss her groundbreaking film Obvious Child.  

*Pop Presentations will delve into monstrous birth, celebrity bumps, and dancing dirty. 

*Dance performances, poetry readings, and stand-up comedy will creatively expand the way you look at pregnancy and choice. 

*With Drink Specials and Silent Auction.  

*Sponsored by The Feminist Press and Choices in Childbirth.  

*Photos by Seze Devres. 

The money raised by this event will benefit The Doula Project: wwwdoulaproject.org. 

The Doula Project is a volunteer-run non-profit that works to advance a new vision of holistic pregnancy care for all people in New York City. Since 2007, we have provided physical, educational, spiritual, and emotional support to thousands of pregnant people, free of charge. We operate under a single guiding principle: that all pregnant people deserve compassion, care, and support, whether they choose abortion, adoption, or to raise their child. 

Gillian Robespierre has written and directed several short films including “Chunk” (2006), the story of an awkward and overweight teenage girl forced to spend her summer at fat camp, and “Obvious Child” (2009). Since penning the feature, OBVIOUS CHILD premiered at Sundance in 2014 and has been nominated for several awards. The film got a nod for the year's "Best Discovery" on iTunes and Ms. Robespierre won Best Directorial Debut from the National Board of Review. Gillian is a born and raised New Yorker. She is currently writing her next feature film and developing a television show.

Bonnie & Maude Launched in June 2012, the monthly film podcast brings a female perspective to the ever-growing conversation around film and gender. Hosted by writer Kseniya Yarosh and radio producer Eleanor Kagan, episodes have covered Disney's Frozen, Kathryn Bigelow's man-gazing in Point Break and The Hurt Locker, and female body horror classics Carrie and Rosemary’s Baby. The A.V. Club says "Yarosh and Kagan are movie-lovers first, and their back and forth is filled with geeky jokes and a clear fondness for the subject matter and each other." Adds The Guardian, "the fact that it is also an excellently produced podcast featuring hosts who clearly know their stuff in the realm of entertainment and feminism and just happen to women is the icing on the cake." 

Sriya Sarkar is a comedian, filmmaker, and digital media artist. She has worked at the BBC, Comedy Central, and Upworthy to name a few. As an improviser and sketch writer, she has performed with the Improvisation News Team in numerous shows and comedy festivals. She started doing stand up a couple years ago because she needed something else on her resume that didn't provide health insurance.  A graduate of NYU Tisch's film/TV program, she is now pursuing her master's in Integrated Digital Media from NYU's Poly School of Engineering. Currently, she is also a frequent collaborator with the reproductive justice organization, Lady Parts Justice - a group that uses humor and outrage to help bring about political change for reproductive rights.

Maureen Brewster is a part-time lecturer of Fashion and Media Studies at Parsons The New School for Design and Marymount Manhattan College. Her research focuses on the intersections between fashion and the body, celebrity, popular culture, and new media. She has a slightly unhealthy obsession with the Kardashian family, but insists it is purely academic. You can follow her critical examination of celebrity pregnancy at bumpwatchproject.tumblr.com, where she tracks various famous baby bumps in her spare time.

Cassie Wagler is a multimedia artist and teacher. For the past six years she has taught sound production, video, journalism, new media, robotics, and media activism in universities, public schools, and community organizations. She also works as a sound recordist for film/video, and as an audio editor. For three years she produced a queer/feminist radio show called ROMANTIC FRIENDSHIP, and she is now investigating the historical relationship between queer femmes and pot smoking for an upcoming project. (And yes, there is a relationship.) 

Lola Pellegrino, RN MSN WHNP-BC ANP-BE is a women’s and adult nurse practitioner living in Brooklyn. She is committed to advancing reproductive justice, sexual health, and harm reduction approaches, especially for youth, those involved with the sex trade, and LGBTQI* individuals. She is a founding member of SWOP-NYC and later of PERSIST, a grassroots health organization that is working to create direct health services for those involved in the sex trade in NYC; she is also a member of the national board of Nursing Students for Choice. Passionate about driving very fast and the triumph of good over evil, she is also a staff writer at Rookie Magazine and frequent contributor to the Hairpin.

Stella Padnos-Shea’s poems can be found in Chest medical journal, The Comstock Review, Lapetitezine.com, and ldyprts.tumblr.com, an online collaboration with jewelry artist Margaux Lange. Stella has regularly performed her work at Studio 26 Gallery in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Having been employed as a college English instructor, jewelry maker, and legal writer, she currently works as a political organizer and therapist. She is currently embarked, though, on her greatest and most challenging project yet: raising 3-year-old daughter Mirabel, while sustaining a marriage. 

Terry Hempfling  Terry Hempfling is a movement-based interdisciplinary artist. Her work has been presented in New York at Dixon Place, AUNTS, Arts in Bushwick, Celebrate Brooklyn!, The Living Theatre and The Last Brucennial, and in San Francisco at ODC Theater. She worked with Marina Abramovic on the piece Generator at Sean Kelly Gallery (New York, NY 2014), was a Director's Choice recipient at Spoke the Hub (Brooklyn, NY 2014) and an Artist in Residence at the Shandaken Project (Shandaken, NY 2012). Terry studied at the San Francisco Circus Center and holds a BFA in Dance and Theater from Antioch College. Find her at terryhempfling.com.

Seze Devres, of Turkish descent, was raised in New York City. She studied photography at Bard College, BA and The School of Visual Arts, MFA. Her fine art work is camera-less photographs (photograms) that explore the potentials of light and color through abstraction and has been widely exhibited internationally. Seze has taught at Kutztown University and The International Center of Photography. While
continuing her creative work through her artistic and academic endeavors, she also works as a commercial photographer producing promotional material for small businesses and musicians. Currently her professional focus is on wedding photography and portraiture, most of which she creates in her Brooklyn studio. Seze’s photography has appeared in The New York Times, Elle Magazine, Time Out NY, The Village Voice, and New York Magazine. Her  passion for electronic music has influenced many collaborative projects: including press photos for many DJs and musicians. Since 1993 Seze has been photographing parties, concerts, and social events in New York City on a regular basis, including the hugely successful museum parties for the PS1/MoMA Warm Up summer events, and The Bunker NY events, a world-renowned weekly techno label and party. Seze’s images and designs have graced dozens of galleries, record covers, posters, flyers, magazines, galleries, and sites.