FLINTA* Voices create space to speak without restriction, without dilution, and without apology. We opened our platform to FLINTA* writers and creators who confront and redefine gendered realities, who understand empowerment not as a trend, but as necessity, and who expose patriarchy not as abstraction, but as lived experience.

Contnuity Is Not Neutral

When I became a mother, I didn’t only give birth to a child. I gave birth to visibility.

As a freelance dancer, my body has always been my instrument, my currency, my proof of commitment. In our field, continuity is survival. Be available. Be mobile. Be ready. Do not interrupt the rhythm.

Then pregnancy interrupted nothing — but it revealed everything. Suddenly, my body was no longer neutral. It became public terrain. People had opinions about my timeline, my ambition, my responsibility.

Will you stop working? When will you come back? How serious are you about your career now? Are you gonna breastfed, right?

Just to share an example: My husband went back to work two weeks after our daughter was born. He was “cool daddy back “. I returned to the stage one month and half after gave birth — by choice, because I wanted to, because I felt ready. And I was judged.

The same action. Two completely different readings. That is patriarchy: not always loud, but automatic. A structure that assumes care is mine to carry and ambition is something I must justify.

During pregnancy, I adapted my movement practice. Not to disappear — but to continue differently.

I researched how to descend to the floor without compression, how to spiral without force, how to dance as two bodies negotiating space inside one. Motherhood did not weaken me. It reorganized me.

After giving birth, the stage was waiting. Or maybe the structure was. Because in freelance art, time does not expand for mothers.

Pause too long, and you dissolve.

Return too slowly, and you risk invisibility.

Return too quickly, and you risk yourself.

This is what it means to move in a FLINTA* body: to constantly negotiate legitimacy.

I started documenting my process — pregnancy, postpartum (A DOCUFILM that I share on social media) — not as confession, but as research. And then something happened: other mothers wrote to me. Voice messages at night: “I thought I was alone.” “I felt guilty too.” “I didn’t know how to come back.”

What felt personal was structural.

That’s when I understood: this was not individual struggle. It was structural. And it was urgent. So I said to myself: okay — let’s create a podcast. A space — still in development — where freelance artists, especially dancers, can speak openly about continuing their careers while becoming mothers. About negotiating stage work and childcare. About ambition inside systems still shaped by patriarchal expectations. Because silence keeps these dynamics invisible.. Because solidarity is a form of resistance. Patriarchy survives on invisibility — especially the invisibility of care.

Reclaiming space does not mean shouting louder. It means insisting on presence. This transformation is not weakness. This motherhood is not deviation from professionalism. My body now carries more than choreography. It carries testimony. Collective voices. The refusal to disappear.

Living and moving in a FLINTA* body means understanding that the world isn’t designed for you to keep going — and choosing to keep going anyway. Not by restoring the old, but by reshaping what is possible. Continuity is never neutral/invisible.

About the Author

Born in Siracusa, Italy, and based in Munich, Emmanuelle Rizzo (29) moves fluidly between independent stages and institutional theatre.

She has performed in opera and theatre at venues such as Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatstheater Nürnberg, and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, and works extensively with independent companies and choreographers, including DieTanzKompanie, SEtanztheater Nürnberg, Susanna Curtis & Co, as well as ongoing collaborations with Barbara Galli-Jeschkel, Beate Höhn (Colabs) etc…

Her solo In meinem Himmel reached the semifinals of the Gdańsk Festival Tańca (2020), and her duet Hut was selected for Prospettiva Danza Teatro (2021). She researches motherhood in dance and has received the Munich Dance Scholarship for her project Movement Diary – Postpartum