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Le Boudoir (2017)

"We wear the mask that grins and lies

It shades our cheeks and hides our eyes

This debt we pay to human guile

With torn and bleeding hearts, we smile"

(Paul Laurence Dunbar, Maya Angelou)

A queer solo piece that is inspired by the art of drag and correspond to Judith Butler's Gender Performativity theory, which says that a gender is a performative act, a mask we are trained to wear.

The work takes place in the transitions between an intimate dressing room and the public space of the performative stage, while everything is expose for the audience to observe. Both the 'dressing room' and the 'performative stage' are located on stage with a clear separation that blurs over time, as a parallel process to the blurriness between masculine and feminine. By that, the performance is a tool to examine the viewer's perspective, the spectator's eye is challenged: sometimes captivated by the gender illusion, sometimes remembers the figure beneath the clothes, it gets confused, and maybe it is unclear how to conceptualize what the eye is seeing.

Transition, transformation processes and the in-between situations are set in the front of the stage, in a sensitive way that enables openness and curiosity.

*Boudoir (French) - A woman's room, which served also as a dressing room and a private space for herself. A place where she was not tied to expected social-behavior codes, where she could express herself freely, a space to 'let it all out' in order to be able to come back out to the guests relaxed and with a smile.

Premiere: Zirat Machol Festival, Hansen House, Jerusalem, August 2017

Was produced with the support of Hazira - Alternative platform for innovative creation in Jerusalem, ‘Rotem’ - Menashe regional council center and Kibbutzim College Dance Faculty.

Choreography & Performance: Adi Shildan

Artistic Adviser: Sahar Azimi

Dramaturgy: Liron Dinovich

Artistic partnership: Nir Vidan

Costumes: Hilla Shapira

Mask: Sharona Efrat

Music: Ofer Tisser

Light Design: Dani Fishof & Rotem Elroy

Photography: Efrat Mazor

The Contemporary Eye

About Dance Arena Festival 2017 / Idit Suslik (Hebrew)

העין העכשווית.png

GenderTuck

A photograph from the piece,

taken by Efrat Mazor,

was published in a special

edition about masculinity (p. 31)

gendertuck_mag.jpg
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