Stained Red Spot Creative Process Blog

Ever since my first menstrual cycle, I’ve been an advocate for eliminating the shame of periods. Throughout the years, I’ve learned about menstrual equality and how shame is just the cusp for people who menstruate. There is the pink tax, lack of supplies in countries around the world, as well as girls who are forced to stay home from school during their periods and so much more. 

These are serious issues, but menstruation is not all negative. It is how human life is created. It is a scientific-magical occurrence that connects everyone on the planet. In my first creative attempt as a 20-year-old, I tried to encompass all these aspects I’ve mentioned above in my dance piece A Period Piece. 

Now for prospects I aim to create an intimate contemporary dance film about a person on their period to initiate thought and challenge the presence of this topic to people who may not experience it. I have narrowed the focus to the raw feelings and experience of a person dealing with menstruation in a personal setting. 

Wednesday Feb. 23rd during my creation process a personal account of my feelings:

I started to get my period today. It has started with horrible cramps. My pelvis to my feet hurt. I have cramps in the souls of my feet. I have lots of things to do. I should be being productive but all I want to do is lay in bed. Yet I am still working and going out for dinner with a friend. I want to scream and cry from the pain. I want to be comforted but talk to no one. I just don’t want to feel the pain anymore. I feel slightly annoyed at everything and I feel like hiding it from people I have to talk to. If someone is sick they don’t normally have to act like they’re fine. So why do people who mentrate have to act like nothing is happening with their bodies. 

Passage from a spoken word script I put together for a dance piece titled A Period Piece I created in my third year of university:

Shouldn’t the ability to menstruate with dignity be the norm?

Unquestionable?

Something we talk about?

We menstruate and it’s seen as dirty.

As if, as if this process is less natural than breathing. 

My womb and the blood that sheds its walls every month is beautiful. 

Why?

Because periods, are the source of life, for our species. 

Others words that inspire me, the movement and theme:

• “The menstrual phase is linked to the element of water. It’s a fluid and liminal time. Sometimes you’re floating in a chill bubble. Sometimes you’re in the dark depths.” - Sarah Blake

• “You don’t have to like your period to be period positive.” - The Pad Project’s Instagram

• “It speaks volumes that the sight of period blood makes people uncomfortable in a world where we are consistently exposed to images that are actually explicitly sexual, violent and gory. [... ] We don't need to sit in an all-female circle praising our inner goddesses and pretending that every moment of having our periods is beautiful and magical -- the cramping sucks! sometimes it can be messy! -- but lessening the shame that surrounds menstruation is a worthy goal, and one that requires us to acknowledge that blood happens. Our bodies are sometimes weird and confusing, but they're also the only ones we've got, so we may as well love 'em.” - Huffpost Article on Rupi Kaur’s period instagram photos by Emma Gray (Linked Below)

Resources - 

Organizations:

The Pad Project https://thepadproject.org/

Preparation Period https://www.operationperiod.org/

Changing the Flow https://changingtheflow.ca/

Films:

https://www.pandorasboxthefilm.com/

Period. End of Sentence. (On Netflix)

Articles:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/rupi-kaur-period-instagram_n_6954898 (one of the first stories/sources that awakened my start to period advocacy) 

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/3b79vw/we-asked-female-comedians-for-their-best-period-stories-121  (funny and light hearted)

Lastly, I want to leave you with the reminder to be kind, especially to people in your life that experience periods. Maybe even talk to them about it. I have learned so much about people when I talk to them about their experiences with menstration. Not one period is the same. On any day you meet or talk to someone they could be bleeding so be kind. 

- Jasmine

PROSPECTS: an evening of dance and discussion presents

Stained Red Spot

Choreographed and performed by Jasmine Almaguer Shledrick
Friday, March 11th, 2022
7:30PM | Door at 7pm
Burlington Student Theatre
2131 Prospect St, Burlington ON
$25 | PWYC
GET TICKETS HERE!