In Tranchée, I am investigating the after-birth period that digs such a deep furrow in young parents’ (especially young mothers’) psyche.

At first, there is this dense, near airlocked cocoon where everything seems to revolve around the new bond. Then, that cocoon starts to stretch and crack, forced to open itself to the world as choices need to be made. Very quickly, expectations pile up: being available without disappearing, claiming back your place without breaking the bond, being simultaneously whole, productive and extremely devoted. These often contradictory injunctions run through (and bother) both body and mind.

After the birth of my child, something split. I feel some kind of dissociation. There is me, and there is the mother in me, two manifestations that coexist but never overlap perfectly. One pulls toward the outside world, the work life, continuity; the other remains anchored inside, to the bond, to some kind of permanent standby mode, and I have to move between them, unable to reconcile them.

Happy to resume work and see other people, I bawl my eyes out when I leave my baby at the daycare centre; thirsty for solitude, a breather, I end up getting bored to death when I finally get some time for myself. These paradoxes, amplified by oxytocin and tiredness, leave trenches in me, splitting me in halves.

Tranchée is a trace of this ambivalence, praising maternal resilience.

— Sophie Delafontaine [English translation: François Couture, vi-26]

Tranchée [Trench] was realized in 2025-26 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée 16.2 studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) and at Module étrange’s studio in Mont-Saint-Aignan (France). It was premiered October 18, 2026 at Théâtre Marni in Bruxelles (Belgium) during the festival L’Espace du son. The piece was commissioned by Musiques & Recherches. A special thank you to Claude Parmentier at Asbl Pinocchio and Lowie Dewitte of the 40th helicopter squadron of the Belgian Air Force (for helicopter sound recordings).

Composition

• September 8 – 21, 2025, Métamorphoses d’Orphée — Musiques & Recherches, Ohain (Belgium)
• November 19 – 23, 2025, Module étrange, Mont-Saint-Aignan (Seine-Maritime, France)
• January 19 – February 1, 2026, Métamorphoses d’Orphée — Musiques & Recherches, Ohain (Belgium)
• May 9 – 12, 2026, Métamorphoses d’Orphée — Musiques & Recherches, Ohain (Belgium)

Premiere

• October 18, 2026, L’Espace du son 2026: Concert portrait: Sophie Delafontaine — Mue, Théâtre Marni, Brussels (Belgium)