The reflection I desire
Mirror mirror on the wall, can you see what's beneath it all?
Inspired by Sylvia Plath’s poem "Mirror" – the piece explores how the mirror’s objectivity is merely skin-deep, never truly able to reveal the whole truth about who the reflection is as a person. After all, there is much more to people than what meets the eye.
As girls/ women, we spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, often hyper-critical of our own image that we fail to notice the strength, character and personality within. The mirror symbolizes society's obsession with beauty standards, and how we are conditioned to never feel good enough, with a constant pressure to compare ourselves with the ever-changing “ideal” image. It is a truly lifelong journey for one to dig deep, embrace and be comfortable in their own skin. Yet we must remember that everyone has their own insecurities, and what we see as flaws, is only a matter of perception.
Beyond every line, blemish and scar, who do you see?
Does your reflection truly defines who you are?
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Choreographed for Maryknoll Convent School (Secondary Section)
Modern Dance Team
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Competed in the 61st Hong Kong Schools Dance Festival
Honours Award & Choreography Award
27 January 2025
Mirror - By Sylvia Plath
I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful‚
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.
Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.