Jayde Kirchert trained at the Victorian College of the Arts, completing a Bachelor of Music Theatre in 2011. At VCA she performed in leading and ensemble roles. Upon graduating she toured with GFO’s Australian production of ‘Annie’ as a Boylan Sister and in the adult ensemble from 2011-2012. In 2013 she founded an independent theatre company, Citizen Theatre. Throughout the last 4 years she has directed, produced and written various theatre works to critical acclaim. Most recently she produced ‘Inferno: A Double Bill’ and directed ‘Crestfall’ as part of the double bill collaboration with 5pound theatre and Attic Erratic. She has been a collaborator and featured actor in a variety of video art projects which have had various screenings internationally. She also has a Post Graduate Diploma in Anthropology and her research interests including the body, religion, performance, materiality and biomedicine.
If a dangerous woman you be
Thinking well into the night, she thinks so
Deeply, thinking, searching: how can I
Allow my body freedom from these burdens?
Thirsty thoughts seduce my mind to shame!
Her self is not her own but owned by people
Who remind her of her age and weakness.
In her body she’s not hers to keep.
Be generous, be gentle! they all say.
So when she thinks, her thoughts are curious, sharp –
Nothing in this world can rile her faster,
Dangerously, she lures herself calm – quickly –
Into secret wishes none should know.
But her thoughts are peppered with the hopes
She learned, desires conditioned, tattooed deep.
How can her mind fool flesh when flesh will yearn?
Her sex requires her for such common needs.
Could she resist the warmth of man’s cool arms –
But how to tame her body not to care?
What means this life when body is a contract?
Vessel from which life is sprung and springs.
A warmer woman she should think herself
If not now, then in years that lie ahead,
If not now, then as woman made by man,
As not now, woman made by thoughts instead.
Deny all forms from entrance low within!
For such did she think steady, sole and true.
That simple thought was hers that night. She swore
For her alone, the vessel now stays pure.
If only to reclaim her own self, whole,
If only to deny the need to share,
Choosing to remain a solo being,
Choosing to defy decided rules.
Without the need to please external minds
She leaves behind the need to decorate
Her limbs, her eyes, her lips, the body free
From artifice, discomfort, lies, command.
Doing this she makes a category
Within which her body she reclaims.
Against the norm, recalcitrant, does she
Rebut the argument that halves make whole.
Around her jibes proclaim her selfish, strange.
But stranger is the object she becomes:
By refusal to give, rent or share it,
Rejecting common life, she’s on the outer.
Why don’t you up and go, become a nun?
They say, if you don’t like they way we live.
Do not deny the truth laid out before you:
Patriarchal needs must all be met!
So they call her frigid, foolish, lonely,
Bossy, un–loveable–likeable–fuckable, most of all
Lacking in adornment, mask or costume
Unfeminine, or not woman at all.
A eunuch is she, sexless, alien,
A rebel. To make her mind and her voice
Speak louder than her body out of choice.
She simply did not want to play the game
Of chase and chaser, that was so engrained.
She could not find a way for freedom when
All that she knew were cold and sadder men.
She had not felt a kind man, only blind ones
Who thought there was no problem to fight:
“Women have it all these days, that’s right”
“Women have it easier than we!”
“Don’t be such a bitch, it’s not pretty”.
Such a heavy weight this choice she chose,
Her social life is crucified for it.
No man’s love to make her lighter, lifted,
Since she wants to feel her weight, her own.
She fears her mind will curse her heart for life!
But what’s it worth and why must it be worthy
For the care of anyone? Why not
For thyself can one simply be?
And her life all alone is dangerous:
Suppose a man should see her by herself
In darkness as she comes home late at night?
This house she built with thoughts, integrity,
Cannot protect her body from attack.
Perhaps her brother could come visit her
Or maybe she needs canine guarding of this
Fortress ruled by the chaste queen?
Suppose a man should learn of her retreat?
Perhaps a greater challenge she becomes –
A prize for domination, needing tutelage,
So she understands how to have fun.
Though this choice she had began as one
That should permit her to know her true self –
In seeking to own her own flesh and body –
She soon saw it could not be achieved.
For sex does pay the rent of living in a
Woman’s body; womanliness is the
Currency required to be permitted
To keep living by the powers that be.
Without the coins to continue the lease
She lives as if a squatter. “Danger knows,
What danger gets is just desserts,” they say.
A woman who decides her body’s path
Might think she has the future in her hands.
But woman’s body is not hers to keep
And if she tries such perils she will reap.
Danger waits before the girl who tries
Judgement, gossip, slander, scathing lies.
Dangerous to be yourself and free
If a dangerous woman you be.