SOMEBODY@MASCHINENHAUS 26 // EIN ABEND MIT: Miss Perfect – Nene Okada / The Place from Which – Jennie Boultbee / MY ASS IS MY WEAPON – Valentina Restrepo Giraldo & Maria Savva

In the organizer's words:

Miss Perfect (Nene Okada)

Miss Perfect is a dance theater piece that humorously and critically portrays the unconscious social pressures placed on women in today's society, as well as the ideal of the "perfect woman" constructed by social media and advertising. In a world overflowing with information and publicly visible evaluations, we unconsciously internalize standards for success and happiness. Through the protagonist's extreme pursuit of perfection, the play questions how invisible norms and the pressure to conform affect not only women, but people of all genders in their self-expression and way of life. The piece invites the audience to reflect on the unconscious social forces that shape our identity.

Dance, choreography, text: Nene Okada Music // Sound recording: Marco Girardin // Choreographic support: Outside perspective: Kati Masami Menze // Photos: Silviu Guiman (Face photo) / Nene Okada (Work image photos) // Duration: 15 minutes // Funding: Supported by Stadt Essen Kulturamt

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The Place from Which (Jennie Boultbee)

The Place from Which" begins with an interest in what is seen as opposed to what is not seen. Although we see and observe everyday life, our cities and environments provide us with a frame through which to view things. How can this architectural image of ourselves be framed and perceived in the self and in our relationships? "It is the skin that resonates, that attracts us, but it is what lies beneath the skin that makes the surface attractive and mysterious ... It is the space behind the words that gives the surface a resonance that makes it important." - Robert Wilson . "The Place from Which builds on a physical practice that provides a literal place from which to begin and from which everything else emerges. Composed with an attention to the absence of things and the playfulness that arises from the possibility of the unknown. What remains seen and unseen; absence is allowed to activate the imagination and expand meaning rather than diminish it. The result is a work that reveals its own construction: a dialog between two performers, the self and the other.

Dance, choreography, video: Jennie Boultbee // Music: Fabian Neubauer // Photos: Esther Murdock // Duration: 30 minutes

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MY ASS IS MY WEAPON (Valentina Restrepo Giraldo & Maria Savva)

MY ASS IS MY WEAPON explores how hip-centered dances - perreo, reggaeton, twerking and belly dance - can be reclaimed as acts of joy, strength and resistance. Movement becomes a language of celebration in which pleasure and power coexist. The performance explores how these dances, which are particularly sexualized or stigmatized when performed by bodies read as female, can be transformed into tools of self-empowerment - as strategies to dismantle internalized shame and challenge patriarchal and colonial structures. The project brings together Maria Savva with Middle Eastern roots and Valentina Restrepo Giraldo with Latin American roots, in collaboration with a sound artist / sound maker. Together they trace how these dances move through everyday life - at weddings, cultural celebrations and parties - and focus on how hips carry desire, strength and emotion. MY ASS IS MY WEAPON is a journey of resistance, joy and self-empowerment, exploring hips and rhythm as tools of agency and resistance.

Concept, choreography & performers: Valentina Restrepo Giraldo & Maria Savva Music // Live performance: BABY.LONIAX // Photos: Lou Gabriel @lougabr // Duration: 30 minutes // Funding: Supported by the City of Essen Department of Culture

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somebody@maschinenhaus 26 is a project by IG Tanz Essen, co-produced with the Maschinenhaus Essen as part of the Mittelzentren Förderung Tanz und Performance and funded by the Allbaustiftung Essen.