seapony at Dixon Place

seapony is a trans-masc pregnancy ritual inspired by the reproductive cycle of male seahorses, who take the lead in childbearing. This ritual is offered through poetry, puppetry, drag, burlesque, and sea song. The story follows a trans Dad-to-be who wishes to bear biological babies. He looks to the ocean as our original parent for guidance on alternative ways to create life and to queer family. He asks, Am I cut out for this? Am I still a boy if I birth a baby? No longer a daughter, can I be,“Daddy?” Along the way he meets a cast of campy characters that highlight the deep ancestral quandaries of parental attachment and identity formation: how we become who we become, and how on earth and under the sea might we change our becomings. With the help of the ocean and the songs of its many nonhuman inhabitants, the audience is invited to relinquish into the water what once was to make room for what can be: from daughter to seahorse daddy.