SCORES THAT SHAPED OUR FRIENDSHIP

In a landscape of mattresses, they encounter each other with curiously inquisitive gestures and non-judgmental descriptions, and from this position, they fathom a field of tensions and contradictions. Over seven short chapters, they unmask society’s norm constructions and, at the same time, work on their own dissolution of physical boundaries, accompanied by Kim Ramona Ranalter’s sound track which ranges from meditation to club sounds.

Analysing attributions is an essential part of this work. Wilke was born with spinal muscular atrophy; her body is often read as a disability. Duduś is a queer dancer with gaudy, flaking nail polish. Together, they expose themselves to the public gaze and counter the audience’s voyeurism with a categorical intimacy. Playfully, they take up the alleged dichotomies of the standardised gaze that could separate them: man/woman, predator/victim, active/passive. Narratives of dependence and victimhood are treated by melting into one single being, by giving each other impulses and carefully trying out the potentials of ever new images. When things between them suddenly become filled with erotic tension, all well-meaning labels like ‘queer’ or ‘inclusive’ become blurred.

And yet, no one in this piece denies that the situation outside the protective walls of the theatre is different. At one point, Wilke talks about the standard rejection she comes across on Tinder: “You have such a beautiful face, but …” Together, Wilke and Duduś shape Wilke’s face into a nightmarish mask – not as an act of self-destruction, but rather of self-empowerment.

At the end of this liberating game, Wilke and Duduś formulate a utopian idea of fiction: Freedom is not least a question of imagination. And so this potentially irritating show proceeds to uncompromisingly do away with all categories.