Trash

Transcript

Jamie: Hello, I'm Jamie Yuenger. And this is 'If You Knew Me', a podcast about the inner lives of women. Before we get into this week's episode, I wanna let you know that we will be hosting a live online event, this fall. You are absolutely invited and if you're a supporter of the show, you'll receive a free ticket.

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Okay, now on today's episode. Every week on 'If You Knew Me', we walk into the heart and mind of one woman. Each guest can choose to share her real name or to stay anonymous.

This week, we hear from Carrie Ahern. That is her real name. Carrie is a modern dancer and choreographer. For almost 20 years, she's run her own dance company. Carrie uses the human body to investigate taboo topics like death, slaughtering animals and most recently women's sexuality.

She has a reputation for doing extensive research and an ability to make viewers deeply uncomfortable and comfortable, simultaneously. She just finished a new show called 'Carnal Spill', which was performed in private homes and New York City. The topic of women's sexuality is deeply fascinating to her on a personal level.

Her story is entitled 'Trash'.

Carrie: I just finished a dance performance and the. Investigation of the performance was all about, a woman's inner life, but, sexual life. And, It has to do a lot with fantasy and. your imagination is activated as well as the sensation itself is happening.

Also what we think about when we're even actually having sex.

I think there's often a whole story. And so I've been in the studio since September, but it was, had been started before COVID. The process. And then it was just completely on hold for at least a year. 

And then I couldn't get into this studio So coming back was like an explosion last year. But, it also, must've just been simmering so much because I, just had a lot of desire, a lot of sexual desire to explore, and it was not possible. It didn't feel possible for me during COVID. I know some people were still, out there exploring, and so now I feel I have this performance and people really responded to it The dancers. And I tell these sexual stories some of them are fantasy and some of them are reality.

And I have delved a lot into

especially the past 10 years of my life this urge for more wildness in my life. It feels really important. so I am now

Carrie: I'm really trying to see how much of this I want to make reality. And my fantasy life is really important to me. it is a big part of how I even make my dances and make my art. It feels like a very kind of sacred place in my life. And when you know, that stuff starts to touch reality, which it does within the context of performance, but it's a whole different reality to actually bring, to have these experiences and to try to explore them

because I'm also in a relationship and, it is an open relationship, but he's also the love of my life. And. It will affect that as well. It's not necessarily, going to harm that at all. just, it will have its effect, too 

I am at the place in my life where if he is with someone else sexually, I would love to hear all about it. I'm not saying jealousy would not arise. I'm saying that's would be probably pretty normal, but I would love to hear about it. And I, I find that appealing, And while the open relationship was his idea. I don't think he's in the same place of wanting to hear about everything that I experience. I don't think he's closed to it, but I think it's just a little bit trickier. he's just in a little bit of a different place. but I have the urge. Because we're so close to tell him everything.

I think I have to be a little bit more wary about that, which, It's not like I'm keeping a secret, but the intimacy is such that it feels like I want to spill everything, but it's. Sensitive

Carrie: we come from very different worlds, but, we've both come a long way. I mean, I come from a very Catholic family. I feel like I grew up. With the idea of repressing all of this stuff. And culturally he comes from a very reserved. Society. He's not Catholic, but Muslim.But, yeah, I think we both. Are very similar. We are very open and very interested in exploring many, many things, kind of like to go far from our home base and really see what can happen.

It's been really fun to explore a lot of stuff with him, but I always want more, this is the thing that I feel like I am now in this place where I'm like, you know what? It's good. It's good. That I always want more, actually, I want more life.

Like, it feels very life affirming. It and I feel this about him to him. Like he's, he has so much to offer people as a lover, I, feel like everyone's different People bring out different facets of you.

And so there's this sense of just there's more. it feels healthy to me. It feels like the more that I desire, the more I want and, does not feel bad. there's a way that yes, I'm going to always be unsatisfied, but it's, that's not it. There's still satisfaction.

It's just, I just keep thinking of this phrase 'life affirming' that it feels like it's just part of life and living and not being depressed and dead 

I can remember when I was 11, I feel like age 11 is often a really big year, especially for girls. And you know, that was the year I discovered that I wanted to become a dancer. So it was like really big a moment in my life, but it was also the year that I both became intensely religious.

 A few months. I mean, it feels like a long time when you're that age a few months, I think it is. And then, I also then essentially started to almost leave the Catholic religion so that by the time I was 17, I chose to not,be confirmed. so I'd already essentially kind of fallen away. and I feel like a lot of that was all similar energy of trying to figure out who I was and, um, you know, how I wanted to make my life.

I lived with a boyfriend very young. Like I was 19 when I first lived with someone which caused a big rift in my family, especially with my mom.

She kinda disowned me for just a couple of months. I think that was all she could stand..

 so we kind of explored breaking all of those rules and then it just took me kind of years keep unraveling what I really wanted. 

Carrie: The dance piece is called carnal spill and, it is an investigation into the language that women use and received during the act of sex. So it's both verbal language and. Body language. so there was a lot of exploration of words, words that you would hear or words that you would say, and often, you know, words that, are considered taboo, 

Hearing them or seeing them can bring their own pleasure. I mean, a word like 'slut', in the right context being called that can feel, you can get a real hit of like desire and heat. you know, or a word like 'trash'. I felt like, that was a word that when one of the dancers first said that to me in rehearsal, I like lit up.

I became very happy and it sounds so absurd, but I think there was a way then I felt like I could explore a facet of myself and, you know, everyone has these other sides and it just felt, uh, there was a way I felt seen. heard by exploring that word 'trash'. I am, I'm like the secret submissive. People assume I'm a very dominant person because. Of how I am in my life. I mean, I run a dance company. I, have done it for a long time. I, have a couple other side businesses and I kind of function in my life. I usually am pretty clear about what I want and how I want to move through the world. And so I think I come off in that way and that's not, that's all true. but within a sexual context, I mean, the submissive role is so incredible to me to totally surrender to someone, um, is like divine.

It just feels so good. So yeah, there's been definitely much more exploration of that in my real sexual life, which has been, you know, even better than I thought.

in that submissive role, I have to totally surrender to what is happening and I can't control it so much. And it just feels really amazing to kind of be able to take in, but not have to think about how to organize everything that's being taken in. You know that moment of kind of surrender and transcendence.

I think we're always looking for both in sex also in religious life. That's that's like, I think it's such a big part of, um, the human desire to just operate and it, really does feel even better than you could thought when you can really like go and. Do anything

you know, so much of life is all these tasks and just even staying alive. Requires certain tasks be accomplished. So, you know, that freedom of not having to do any of those is pretty, profound.

It's that wildness, it's that sense of like, just letting everything, it doesn't matter. even like degradation doesn't matter because it's just all this experience in the body, I think. Yeah. I mean, I P I appears very put together and very kind of, you know, on this certain track and to be free of that and to just have it all be super, not even just lose.

Carrie: Potentially negative, you know? yeah. feels, yeah, it's, it's just a part of me. That is, is there, it's a side.

I could talk about shadow selves and all this other stuff, but it, doesn't really even really matter. I just feel like we're all really complicated and have many, many facets

I think sex really, really expands our potentiality and our possibility and, you know, art does as well. Right? So that's another aspect you know, even that whole thing about the trash that I loved word, it was like, it was like a new facet of myself to explore and it was new and expanding.

So, uh, it was very. Delightful actually to kind of find that part of myself.

Jamie: Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. Carrie Ahern is the artistic director and producer of her dance company Carrie Ahern Dance. Her latest performance is entitled 'Carnal Spill'. She lives in Brooklyn, New York. I invite you to check out Carrie's website. Links to follow Carrie and 'learn more' are in the show notes.

If this is your first time listening to the show, thanks for tuning in. This show is about expansion and self-compassion and consciousness and connection. Each episode touches questions that are central to women's lives. If you've been listening for a while, we're so grateful and happy to have you.

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This podcast is produced by me, Jamie Yuenger and my husband, Piet Hurkmans. Thanks so much for listening to 'If You Knew Me'. We'll be back with you next week.