How do rebellious bodies mould themselves in their protest against existing systems? What strategies are used to question power relations, to run against them and to protest? Following the successful production Radical Cheerleading, which was nominated for the German Theater Award Der Faust 2023, Zufit Simon and her team, including a live-musician, are continuing their research into choreographed forms of protest. While Radical Cheerleading was developed as a clearly connoted form of expression by queer-feminist activists in the 1990s, Bodies in Rebellion reflects more comprehensively on the phenomenon of protesting people.

What creativity is unleashed in physical expression in order to gain public attention and focus on one’s own message? How do the forces of order react to the protests and what formations result from them? What is specific to female forms of protest and how can one stand up for one’s rights in a peaceful manner? What role do acoustic signals and the use of the voice play in this? Particular attention of the research is payed to the conditions of public spaces on the one hand and the protected theater space on the other. The main focus of the production lies on the ambivalence of bodies, which act very powerfully but are also very vulnerable: the oscillation between power and vulnerability.

zufitsimon.com

[Source: uferstudios.com]

TFB Nr. 1940