- Playing
- Nativity: one-hour version
- From
- Conrad Bishop
Childbirth: human and divine. The voices of twenty-six women describe their pregnancies, child-bearing, and the shadow and sun of what follows. It?s about the diversity, the immense challenge, and innate sacredness of every birthing. A celebration of the real ? a miracle, in the words of these women, that?s magical, hellacious, transcendent, messy, liberating, excruciating, easy or impossible.
It?s interspersed with fragments of ?divine birth? stories from the Gospels to Egyptian to Native American sources.
From listeners:
?Amazing. Powerful. It cost me a few tears. I want my mom to hear it. Thanks for doing this magical work.?
?What a great show... made me think and remember and long to hug my kids again and again.?
?I found myself getting chills all over, crying, laughing, and feeling so moved! It was a spiritual experience. It brought back the birth experience so vividly and made me feel connected to the other mothers and the web of life.?
?NATIVITY features potent interviews with women on the joy and pain of pregnancy, birth and new parenting. Narrators Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller dramatically frame snippets of dialogue with haunting music and mythical stories about birth. This is a gem of a recording.?
?Melissa Chianta, Mothering Magazine
Available in either one 57-minute version or a series of three 27-minute programs. Longer CD version available for listener premiums.
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Related Pieces
Piece Description
Childbirth: human and divine. The voices of twenty-six women describe their pregnancies, child-bearing, and the shadow and sun of what follows. It?s about the diversity, the immense challenge, and innate sacredness of every birthing. A celebration of the real ? a miracle, in the words of these women, that?s magical, hellacious, transcendent, messy, liberating, excruciating, easy or impossible. It?s interspersed with fragments of ?divine birth? stories from the Gospels to Egyptian to Native American sources. From listeners: ?Amazing. Powerful. It cost me a few tears. I want my mom to hear it. Thanks for doing this magical work.? ?What a great show... made me think and remember and long to hug my kids again and again.? ?I found myself getting chills all over, crying, laughing, and feeling so moved! It was a spiritual experience. It brought back the birth experience so vividly and made me feel connected to the other mothers and the web of life.? ?NATIVITY features potent interviews with women on the joy and pain of pregnancy, birth and new parenting. Narrators Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller dramatically frame snippets of dialogue with haunting music and mythical stories about birth. This is a gem of a recording.? ?Melissa Chianta, Mothering Magazine Available in either one 57-minute version or a series of three 27-minute programs. Longer CD version available for listener premiums.
Broadcast History
Broadcast as part of our series "Hitchhiking off the Map" in December 2002 on seven California stations, including KPFA & KRCB-FM.
Transcript
(WORD FILE ATTACHED ABOVE)
NATIVITY ? 57-MINUTE VERSION
Brief baby cry.
ROTH: Well I think childbirth is sacred. It's a sacred time.
Baby sound.
ROSE: Well I was very excited, actually. I mean, I was stunned and I was scared and I was horrified, but I was very excited.
Baby sound.
JC TODD: It was a great birth. And I think it?s the smartest I?ve been, in terms of being a whole human being with a full intelligence in every cell of your body. Toenails included. Just that hour or whatever of pushing, and being very clear about what it was all about. That was great. that was great, it was so great I vowed never to do it again.
Music in.
CB: This is a special program about something very common. It happens worldwide among the human species about a hundred thirty million times a year. Birth. I?m Conrad Bishop?
EF: And Elizabeth Fuller. Over the...
Read the full transcript
Timing and Cues
Timing:
0:00 - Part 1
19:53 - 10" music out
20:03 - Part 2
38:30 - 10" music out
57:00 - End
Musical Works
All original music-
Additional Files
- photo: program logo-baby (ntcoverforprx.jpg)
- photo: hosts/b&w (cbeftreescroppedbw)
- photo: hosts/color (xtree8.jpg)
- news release (nativityreleaseprxdoc.rtf)
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Marjorie Van Halteren
Posted on April 14, 2006 at 02:25 AM | Permalink
Review of Nativity
For Mother's Day: an hour dedicated to "making life" instead of taking it. Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller have applied their talents as performers and writers to make a very original documentary, that is deceptively low-key, while holding a subtle intensity within. In the beginning; Conrad says, they thought they would make a documentary talking to many woman of all ages and races and cultures - but in the end, they didn't - they just talked to people they knew about giving birth to YOU. In fact, he breadth of the experience of their friends and friends of friends is large and deep - and travels pretty far over the map of something is "messy, hard work and a miracle and a gift." Spirituality is embraced without being too directive and excluding any faith or lack there of . In disclaimer I admit that this reviewer has not experienced childbirth herself - but having said that, I seem to know that thousands and thousands of listeners will walk straight into these stories with recognition. I feel I have lived parallel to this universe - but oddly as daughter, one-time wife, sister, neighbor, friend - I've been there all along. "A big boy now: I see my husband at 19 and fall in love again." In its subtlety, this hour is the exact opposite of a greeting card, but not without the decorative pleasures.