2017
Performance, 18min.
Performed with Raluca Croitoru
Fangless begins in a large space where the audience sits into a tight formation around a central circular stage. Two bodies enter, carrying a single cast plaster leg between them. Walking in sync, they reach the stage, where the plaster leg is dropped onto the floor, shattering.
One body stands; the other moves into a “falling position”. The standing body begins to address the audience, speaking about the second body as an anatomy lesson unfolds. One by one, parts of the body—eyes, nose, lips, ears, head, shoulders, arms, wrists, hands, hips, back, legs, skin, bones, lungs, spleen, stomach, ovaries, heart, brain, tissues, veins, nerves, and cells—are pointed to and described.
The work investigates the body of the foreigner as a contested territory; one where histories, memories, hearsay, gossip, and state-imposed narratives compete to assign meaning. The performance draws from a range of texts that delineate the boundary between insider and outsider, with a particular focus on the Inburgeringsexamen (civic integration exams) in the Netherlands.
The falling positions performed by Croitoru are drawn from specific falls that occurred during the 2016 Summer Olympics, when the Romanian women’s gymnastics team failed to qualify for the games after decades of dominating the sport internationally. Through this framework, the choreography links the intimate vulnerability of bodily collapse to the shattering of national mythologies and systemic pressure.
Documentation by Carina Ederman
Special thanks to Ash Kilmartin and Collette Rayner
Presented as part of Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? The Power Nap at Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2017.
Presented as part of Why Is Everybody Being So Nice? at De Appel, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2017.
Presented as part of Swarming Spawns Rebel Workers, Kralingen Botanical Gardens, Rotterdam, 2017.