LICHTUNG + SEIDE & STAHL // Double bill

In the organizer's words:

LICHTUNG - YOLANDE SOMMER
SILK & STEEL - JARMILA LEE-LOU KUZNIK
recommended for ages 14 and up

LIGHTING
is an experiment. A desire for more freedom. A loving struggle for more security. A search for the creation of self-determination and freedom through community: What do we have to unlearn and experience anew in order to take responsibility? For others and for ourselves. Lichtung is an invitation to live freedom, to rediscover ourselves every day and to give everyone else the opportunity to do so through individual self-confidence.

SILK & STEEL
is a captivating solo performance that creates an impressive balance between fragility and muscular strength. This production combines contemporary circus techniques, elements from weightlifting and audiovisual interludes. It takes an in-depth look at the disciplinary and gender-specific contradictions of aerial artistry and weightlifting. In a collaborative interplay with female circus artists, weightlifters and activists, I strive for an explorative and interventionist approach to a social and artistic paradox: the powerful female body and its aesthetic invisibility. Motivated by feminist critique of body norms and the self- and other-exploitation of FLINTA* bodies (women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans* and agender people), Seide & Stahl ties in with current discourses and transforms them through a powerful visual language into a circus piece that creates visibility for those who are often seen as too much, too big, too hurt or too wounded. The circus has a tradition of gender fluidity and the representation of "different" bodies, but one that is rooted in a discriminatory and fetishized voyeurism. With Silk & Steel I hope to make a statement for the presence of the strong female body in the performing arts, to create new aesthetics and inspiration for FLINTA*s to present themselves beyond the classical norms.

agb