On Wednesdays We Wear Pink

How does a woman live inside a pink world?

The femininities of “On Wednesdays We Wear Pink” live inside a monochromatic setting, trapped inside an endless parade of Wednesdays. In the wake of his “Cinderella’s,” Alexandros Stavropoulos turns his attentions once more to the diverse forms and contradictions inherent in representations of femininity. In a space reminiscent of a dream-like, fairy tale refuge that is also a gilded cage, five female performers give themselves over to a series of transformations. Confirmed feminists and misunderstood Barbies, Disney princesses and Amazons, all seeking satisfaction, and emancipation from anything and everything tying them down. They test the limits of these (often stereotypical) identities, mixing their disparate ingredients together in a search for the perfect concoction: the one that will lead to the fulfilment of their desires.

Irony and ambiguity constitute the core tools within the scenic language proposed by this work, since every single thing is open to multiple interpretations. This is fitting since the color pink is as connected to the female sex organs as it is to an idealized and often repressed, yet generally accepted sexuality. The movement vocabulary develops on the basis of yet another paradox, as it appropriates elements drawn from Latin dance forms that are reformulated into solitary renditions, stripped of a partner.

The work’s five figures share a repetitious daily existence and the dream of escape, like living mannequins in a window display searching for the exit. The repository of images and motifs they draw upon is articulated by an interplay of pop culture, camp, and kitsch – that barrage of references that live on in the collective imagination. It is through precisely these successively layered images and narratives that the characters seek to open up small fissures within established identities – cracks of freedom.