Simon(e) van Saarloos, Rahel Barra, Natal Igor Dobkin
Nocturnal Queer Bodybuilding plays with the impostor energy of drag performance and the supposed political isolation of sport practices. The performers enter, positioning themselves like bodybuilders, near-naked, boobs like bulged muscles, gazing at the audience – defying and proud. They ready themselves, pouring oil on each other, slapping the skin. The performers go through a choreography of exercises, cheering each other on, in competition but also co-dependent: using each other as weights. Heavy breathing becomes a rhythm, looping. The audience enters into the specific temporality of bodybuilding, of a gym, which is inherently looped, perfected and out of everyday time. As Kathy Acker questions: “What actually takes place when I bodybuild? The crossing of the threshold from the world defined by verbal language into the gym in which the outside world is not allowed.” Bodybuilding is a highly coded body practice that has undergone various levels of social recognition, from being considered ‘lower class’ to becoming the physical ideal portrayed in Hollywood films. Though it has been said that bodybuilding produces androgynous bodies that dissolve gender difference, the popular reception of bodybuilding produces rather normative images. By performing the traditional gestures of the bodybuilder from a queer experience, we aim to create glitches in an otherwise highly protocoled bodily language. Combining our experience with traumatic events directly related to being read “female“ and our experience with martial arts and contact sports, we wish to create a performance that embodies questions of violence, strength, drag play and perception. What is perceived as strength, which bodies can perform muscle and expansion? Who is allowed to rest, whose presentation of power is considered affective? In this Queer Bodybuilding performance, we explore embodiment as (gender-)queer people and the desire to feel and appear strong without perpetuating or mimicking normative masculinity. Whose queerness do we represent, and whose queerness do we exclude as white performers, appearing half-naked, with curvy but non-fat able bodies? How do we glitch the intricate connection between bodybuilding and ideologies of health and strength? Initially, the performers take up "classic" bodybuilding poses, then move towards changing them. This scene is all about showing muscle. We will develop poses to show off other tissue than muscle: binding tissue, fatty tissue, bony tissue, fantastic tissue, the tissue that we build between us. We use slow-motion and speed to play with exaggerated motions and sensationalism. After the performance, Rahel and Simon(e), while still covered in oil and half-naked, invite the audience for a short conversation on what we commonly experienced.
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A packet of materials will be sent for participation, please provide a postal address for this when registering (no later than May 17.)
Language: English
Audio-Description
Subtitles in English
Sponsors and Supporters
Nocturnal Unrest ist eine Kooperation des nOu-Kollektivs und Ladiez e.V. Kulturelle und Politische Bildung für Frauen, des Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, der feministische philosoph_innen Frankfurt und dem Hafen 2 Offenbach.
Gefördert durch Fonds Soziokultur im Rahmen des Programms Neustart Kultur der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, das Goethe Institut, das Hessische Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kunst, die Hessische Theaterakademie, Frauenreferat und Stabsstelle Inklusion der Stadt Frankfurt am Main, dem QSL Fonds und dem AStA der Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main sowie durch die Crespo Foundation.
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Biografien
Simon(e) van Saarloos (1990, Summit, New Jersey) is a writer and philosopher based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. They published several books in Dutch including a novel and a collection of columns. In Enz. Het Wildersproces, Van Saarloos shares a feminist and queer report of the trial against the Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders. In Het monogame drama, Van Saarloos critiques monogamous living and false notions of safety, proposing a non-monogamous love life and a different take on ownership and property. The book was recently translated into English and published by Publication Studio, titled Playing Monogamy. Their most recent book, Herdenken herdacht, is a non-fiction work about queer forgetfulness, whiteness and embodied commemoration. Van Saarloos graduated with a M.A. in Fine Art and Design from the Dutch Art Institute (DAI Roaming Academy) in 2020. Their thesis Science Without Man: Future Ghosts in a(n) RAtioNAL Space is based on an artist residency at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience. Van Saarloos currently teaches a theory research seminar at the Ecology Futures M.A. at AKV|St. Joost and curates collaborations between artists, activists and scholars however also regularly appears on stage as a lecturer, interviewer and performer.
Natal Igor Dobkin (36), based in Tel Aviv, is a performance artist, a teacher, and an adjunct professor in the department of gender studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, for which he/they had been noted an outstanding lecturer. He/They teach a performance-art course at the Pre-Academic Art School The Garage for students facing mental health challenges. Dobkin regularly facilitates independant workshop in Tel Aviv that deals with the performer’s identity in gender and sexual contexts, and in the stage world. Dobkin holds a M.A in gender studies from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, and a B.A in theatre directing and pedagogy from Seminar Hakibutzim College, Tel Aviv.
Natal Igor Dobkin (36), based in Tel Aviv, is a performance artist, a teacher, and an adjunct professor in the department of gender studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, for which he/they had been noted an outstanding lecturer. He/They teach a performance-art course at the Pre-Academic Art School The Garage for students facing mental health challenges. Dobkin regularly facilitates independant workshop in Tel Aviv that deals with the performer’s identity in gender and sexual contexts, and in the stage world. Dobkin holds a M.A in gender studies from Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Be’er Sheva, and a B.A in theatre directing and pedagogy from Seminar Hakibutzim College, Tel Aviv.