Alexandra Bachzetsis. Private: Wear a mask when you talk to me

 
The second event in Furla Series #01 features Swiss/Greek artist and choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis, whose cross-disciplinary approach blends dance, theater, performance, and the visual arts.
 

Bachzetsis’s investigation centers on the language of the body, specifically exploring how gestures and poses are shaped and determined by the stereotypes and clichés of popular culture. Her performances draw inspiration from many fields of mainstream culture, ranging from the entertainment world to fashion, to re-examine the tropes of contemporary femininity. Her exploration of the human body revolves around an ongoing analysis of how gestures are used in real life and fictional entertainment, whether “lowbrow”—music videos and television—or “highbrow”—the performing arts—and how these cultural genres interact and influence each other.
 

Private: Wear a mask when you talk to me was presented for the first time in 2016 at the Festival DansFabrik in Brest. In this 53-minute-long solo performance, the artist portrays a sequence of characters caught up in a vast range of stereotyped performative/choreographic/athletic poses and movements. One can make out a multitude of references: to Asian drag queen moves, fitness routines, advertisements, Michael Jackson, yoga positions, or even the postures found in football games or porn films. Like many of the artist’s works, this piece explores how gender and sexual identity is expressed through the body and through movement, through an approach that pays homage to the experiments of dancer and choreographer Trisha Brown (1936-2017). Private: Wear a mask when you talk to me examines the manifold images of “femininity,” studying the processes of depersonalization, transition and change, and how the fluid boundaries of self are constantly shifted, deconstructed, and redefined through stereotyped roles. Private is a constantly evolving project that recently engendered the performance Private Song, presented at documenta 14 in Athens and Kassel.

Cover photo by: Alexandra Bachzetsis, Private: Wear a mask when you talk to me, 2016 © Blommers & Schumm