Body Politics

The Body Politics festival at Onassis Stegi (26-30 October) presents six choreographic solos by artists from different corners of the planet, all outside the West. What unites them is the intensity with which the artists use the body in order to speak about things society as a whole still refuses to face.

The body, which perfectly expresses all things, thus becomes a field where norms and exceptions collide, the accepted and the forbidden, conservatism and freedom. It becomes a field of confrontation, a tool for claiming emancipation, human rights, acceptance, becomes a field of expression for gender identity, but also a space for encountering difference, encountering the Other. The body is always the threshold for that encounter, the limit point for claims, the vehicle for resistance, the point where political claims and solidarity meet.

Thus, South African Robyn Orlin directs an explosive one-man show about racism, homophobia, and freedom; Nadia Beaugré from Côte d’Ivoire performs an astonishing one-woman protest show about the apathy of the West before the utter indigence of the African continent, which the West has itself brought about; Indian Mallika Taneja presents a daring performance about the role of women in her country and the body as taboo; Iranian Sorour Darabi focuses on the relationship between language, power, and gender identity; and Lebanese Danya Hammoud offers an exploratory performance about the body as a place where the contradictions in human nature come into conflict; while Filipina Eisa Jocson delivers a surprising solo about the construction of gender roles and the body as an object in the market for sex entertainment.

Curated by: Katia Arfara
Production Management: Dimitra Dernikou

26 & 27 OCTOBER | UPPER STAGE | 19:30

How do you speak about your body in a country where the female body is taboo?

In a country where women are continually exposed to the danger of male violence, the only advice given to girls is to “be careful,” to not provoke. Victims of violence are often blamed for provocative behavior, while no man is held accountable. How does it feel to try to shake free of taboos and speak openly about your body and your identity as a woman in a country where the female body is itself an enormous taboo? Or to be weighted down by an injustice you can’t express in a society that orders you to keep quiet and hide in order to survive? How can art bring about social change?

Mallika Taneja summons the courage to speak about all this using her last recourse, her body itself, in a spare, powerful performance. In traditional Indian acting troupes, actors travel from village to village, becoming one with their roles, step by step as they trace the entire country. Mallika Taneja, too, has been “living” this performance for over five years, courageously baring her body and, with the insistence of one drowning in injustice, to seek justice at all costs.

Devised and performed by: Mallika Taneja
The show was first created at the Tadpole Repertory as part of their show "NDLS"

For more information: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG2179/

26 & 27 OCTOBER | EXHIBITION HALL -1 | 20:30

Macho Dancing is a Philippino phenomenon: a dance in the voyeurism industry danced exclusively by men in clubs for women or homosexuals. A dance that flaunts its "manliness" using a somatic idiom for turning an audience on for money. Eisa Jocson assumes the role of the 'macho dancer' and performs its kinesiological vocabulary with surgical cool and impressive precision.

The act of playing with her androgynous image causes a slight shift in every role involved, reformulating the customary relationships between them in the process: the macho dancer comes across as powerful, but might the voyeuristic gaze make him vulnerable and weak? By putting herself in his place, Eisa Jocson creates a rift in our own gaze, an opening that lets questions through about the way gender roles are constructed, about how we perceive the clichés of 'sexiness’, about voyeurism and the body as object.

Concept, Choreography and Performance: Eisa Jocson

Light Design: Jan Maertens

Music Composition: Lina Lapelyte

Coach: Rasa Alksnyte

Dramaturgical Advice: Arco Renz

Technical Manager: Yap Seok Hui

Songs: “Devil's Dance” by Metallica, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Tyler, “Pagbigyang Muli” by Erik Santos, “Careless Whisper” by Wham!

Co-production: Workspacebrussels, Beursschouwburg

Residency and support: Workspacebrussels, Beursschouwburg, wpZimmer

For more information: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG2182/?

26 & 27 OCTOBER | UPPER STAGE | 22:00

How can a person who doesn’t want to have a gender speak of identity? What is the relationship between our native language and our understanding of gender?
What if you were coming from a neutral world and, all of a sudden, everything had a gender? What does gender determine? How do language and predetermined understandings affect how a society understands gender? In "Farci.e" we will find only questions — no answers… Sorour Darabi will attempt a lecture about gender, overturning images, playing with our perceptions, and offering an unprecedented interpretation of his/her multidimensional self…

Concept, Choreography and Performance: Sorour Darabi

Lights: Yannick Fouassier

Lighting Operator: Jean-Marc Ségalen

Outside Eye: Mathieu Bouvier

Administration: Charlotte Giteau

Touring: Sandrine Barrasso

Production: Météores

Co-production: Festival Montpellier Danse, ICI-CCN de Montpellier Occitanie Midi-Pyrénées, with the support of CND Pantin in the frame of a residency, Honolulu-Nantes and Théâtre de Vanves

Special thanks to: Loïc Touze, Raïssa Kim, Florence Diry, Pauline Brun, Jule Flierl, Clair.E Olivelli, Zar Amir Ebrahimi

Sorour Darabi is a self-taught Iranian artist living and working in Paris. Working actively in Iran, s/he was a part of the underground organization ICCD, whose festival Untimely (Tehran) hosted their work before their departure for France.

“Farci.e” was awarded the Jury Prize at the 2016 Zürcher Theater Spektakel festival.

For more information: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG2180/?

29 & 30 OCTOBER | UPPER STAGE | 19:30

A unique performance about racism and freedom.

Robyn Orlin always finds a way to talk about the things no one talks about in South Africa. And while her country was once silent in the face of Apartheid, it is now celebrating its first quarter century of democracy, so what does that tell us about racism and homophobia? How does someone claim a gender identity in South Africa today? And is there real freedom? In her writings, the choreographer argues that there isn't. She advocates her country claiming a truly African identity that would be simultaneously male and female, Christian and pagan, local and global, without the one betraying the other.

Albert Silindokuhle Ibokwe Khoza, her young performer, is all that and more. An incredible performer whose powers of transformation are infinite, since he is already everything: both a man and woman and gay, too, a dancer and an actor and a singer, as well, Christian and a sangoma (a traditional healer) but also a citizen of the world. This being with the body beyond all norms, who embodies an elusively different Africa, performs his solo on the seven deadly sins with his back to the audience, facing the huge image of himself projected onto the screen in front of him.

And if every performance presents us with a mirror in which we can see ourselves, this performance does it literally, since the camera never stops filming Albert, projecting him in constant close-up, but the audience, too, which often sees its own image on the big screen. Which is where it encounters that massive body, that scary, wonderful, sad, happy, tormented, Kafkaesque creature — a Nubian Queen, a Peacock of the Nile, an African warrior — and faces up to it. Will that body find a way to exist in a world that refuses to accept it? And don't let the music fool you: Mozart’s “Requiem” was never quite as happy, as danceable, as "African", as it is in this show.

A proposal by Robyn Orlin
Dancer: Albert Silindokuhle Ibokwe Khoza
Costumes: Marianne Fassler
Lights: Laïs Foulc
Stage Manager: Thabo Pule
Administration and Production: Damien Valette
Assistance and Coordination: Margot Lahalle
Production: City Theater & Dance Group, Damien Valette Prod.
Thanks to: Philippe Lainé for the use of images and Léopard Frock’s team
Co-production: City Theater & Dance Group, Festival Montpellier Danse 2016, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Kinneksbond, Centre Culturel Mamer, Luxembourg, Centre Dramatique National de Haute-Normandie, La Ferme du Buisson, Scène Nationale de Marne-la- Vallée
With the support of Arcadi Ile-de-France
For more information: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG2184/?

29 & 30 OCTOBER | EXHIBITION HALL -1 | 20:30

Quartiers libres: a French expression meaning "the space of freedom". As a performance, “Quartiers Libres” was made to create a free space in which an African woman’s cry for justice could be heard. Because as Africa drowns under a mountain of plastic waste, and Western waste in general, the West remains inert and apathetic.

And it is precisely this apathy that the stirring Nadia Beugré seeks to subvert, putting herself in among the audience, expressing all the things that can’t be said, emotions too complex to put into words, with her body. As she seeks the freedom to speak, she’s forever becoming entangled in her endless microphone cable, entrapped by a mountain of plastic bottles and — above all — trapped within herself as, gagged by bottles and weighed down by her bottle clothes, she struggles to reach out to the humanity around her.

Choreography, Performance, Plastic Creation: Nadia Beugré
Dramaturgy, Sound Creation & Operation: Boris Hennion
Technical Direction: Christophe Fougou / Anthony Merlaud
Costumes: Nadia Beugré and Boris Hennion
Lights & Stage Design: Laurent Bourgeois and Erik Houllier
Sound Landscape “alarms”: Mathieu Grenier
Executive Production: Latitudes Prod – Lille
Special thanks: Choreographic National Center in Montpellier (France), Agora-Montpellier Danse, Choreographic Development Center in Toulouse (France)

For more information:: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG2186/?

29 & 30 OCTOBER | UPPER STAGE | 22:00

What makes our constant attempt to rest impossible? Lebanese Danya Hammoud explores the depths of human movement.

Danya Hammoud is a choreographer-explorer. Her works investigate the body as a site of inscription for collective memory, eternal quest, tragedy and poetry. She achieves something that few choreographers can pull off: she gives the viewer space to think about the body, that constant companion which we often ignore entirely. Each of her works is a continuation of the one before, both in their exploration of movement and in their thematic obsessions. Through the materialistic existence of the body, she attempts to give substance to all other elements that make up a human being.

This performance makes visible the states of the human body in search of rest. And yet, its innate ambition puts it continually in a state of tension, compelling it to rise, to move, to confront. This state of tension gives substance to every aspect and detail of the movement, creating a landscape where time stops, making room for the viewer to be and think.

Choreography: Danya Hammoud

Music: Sharif Sehnaoui

Performed by: Danya Hammoud

Technical Director: Nadim Deaibes

Costume: Raya Kazoun

Produced by: AFAC (Arab Fund for arts and culture)

Supported by: L’échangeur - CDCN Hauts de France

For more information: http://www.sgt.gr/eng/SPG2183/?