PERFORMANCE & INSTALLATION

If I say it
as I know how to say it
immediately
you will see my present body
fly into pieces and under ten thousand
notorius aspects a new body
will be assembled
in which you will never again be able
to forget me
-Artaud-

Words are no longer enough.
The body must now speak.
And what will it say?
This is about the private and the perverse…an experiment…an investigation into the murkier parts of the human psyche, where the inexplicable becomes visible.
A sex-starved housewife hankers for release, a beautiful woman with horned hands shreds her own skin, a painted lady performs tricks for a thirsty public and all the while something greater looks on, observing.
​La Donna è Mobile is a look at womanhood in all its deformity. Inspired by the extraordinary photographs of hysterics, taken at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris at the end of the 19th century, RemoteControl use muscular choreography, a few daft antics and a whole lot of the peculiar to plunge headfirst into this visceral world. Farewell to the unity of time and place, let compulsion and dark desire prevail.

Hysteria - a medical diagnosis that no longer exists but in its time was reserved for women.
We became fascinated by photographs taken during Jean-Martin Charcot’s reign at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris at the end of the 19th Century. The pictures show women patients mid-hysterical fit. It was believed that the extreme contortions of the body were triggered by the innermost passions of the soul and they led us to explore the theme of repression.

The show question how this psychological illness manifested itself upon the body and how involuntary movement is really an expression of an internal state. Hysteria as a stimulus, opened the door for us to a dark and crazy world where we dissect woman, intestines and all. The work not only challenges us to examine new ground as theatre makers, but also to dig deep in what it is to be a woman in all its ugliness as well as its beauty, therefore to understand a little better who we are.

Devised by RemoteControl
Performed by Petra Casale, Ingrid Liavaag, Christine Ryndak, Emily Wachter

Nominated Total Theatre Award Best Emerging Company, Edinburgh Festival 2013
Winner Wildfire Critics’ Choice Award, Ignite Festival UK 2013
Shortlisted for most exciting emerging company, Fest Live UK 2013