Double Concerto

n Double Concerto, Larysa Bauge conducts a symphonic score while holding her infant daughter in her arms. The performance collapses the distinction between artistic labor and maternal labor—turning what is often hidden into the center of spectacle.

Where the conductor traditionally appears in total control—elevated, separate, male—Bauge introduces an embodied contradiction. Her gestures remain authoritative, but her arms are full. Her body becomes both a conduit of power and a site of dependency, fragility, and resilience.

The work is a sharp metaphor for parenthood as performance: rhythm interrupted by need, precision reshaped by proximity, care woven into command. By reimagining the conductor’s podium as a space of maternal presence, Double Concerto stages a radical rethinking of authorship, virtuosity, and what it means to lead when one is also being held.