Veza Fernández - Chantal, the body is a text longing for perspective

Dance, performance, text *** World premiere *** in English *** Duration: ca. 60 minutes

Veza Fernández sets her performance Chantal, the body is a text longing for perspective in an anatomical theatre. The choreographer invites the audience to experience text, body and embodied text beyond the borders of the skin.

Chantal, the body is a text longing for perspective is an intimate anatomical spectacle that reveals the body as an exuberant text. The eponymous Chantal is a multi-layered figure created out of the performers’ individual voices. She attempts to unveil the body-forming processes that are on the line when we love, think, look and hurt. Chantal is a live anatomical doll as found in medical auditoriums who invites the audience to collectively study how to experience a theatre beyond the borders of the skin. She scintillates between eyes and ears and utters deep sighs to listen. She is a lesbian Venus arising from the songs of broken hearts and metaphysical poems who encourages us to open up to the way we order the parts that our identities are made of. A restless poet, a sensual actor, a famous wax figure, an enamoured sculptor, a hoarse dancer and a strolling teacher – all hatch out of her guts. Chantal opens and dissects her body out of many bodies, reciting text from one body into the next, from one language into the next, from one register to the next. Chantal, the body is a text longing for perspective is a moving choreographic essay that redesigns the dispositive of anatomical theatre and examines what a staging of the inwards thinks, mobilises and imagines beyond patriarchal norms and dominant regimes of attention.

"Each orifice sucking each other becomes a membrane holding each other accountable.
Uhm So stuck to my bones you are…
My bones made into drums.
Es spannt. It pulls. I cry.
And I keep asking: what should we examine here today?
You only answer
for that we shall move towards the extremes, the infinite, the very moment of perceiving"

Accessibility: Audience members can choose to sit or lie down.

Info: On Fri. 07.11., there will be an Aperitivo at 19:30 and an arist talk after the performance. Two slots on Sat. 08.11.: 17:00 & 20:00

Content notes: The performance contains nudity as well as depictions of sexual violence and pain. Recommended from the age of 16 years.