bodies are made up of language. bodies are historical artifacts. bodies unfold epic stories. bodies are collective inventions. 
 
Shadow Text is a choreographic translation of Les Guérillères, a feminist epic novel written by Monique Wittig (1971). Les Guérillières takes as its plot a violent and erotic revolution. Circular in form, it is a three part epic following the transition out of a hetero-patriachial culture and into the formation of a new semiotic order of lesbian relationality. Through sound, text, and movement Shadow Text explodes the epic novel, creating an immersive performance where bodily grammar cracks open the text letting words act themselves out upon and within the bodies of the audience. No longer is it possible to find any neat distinction between body and word. No longer can we start by saying ‘I’. No longer can we say that everything inside of us is ours. Shadow Text exists within the fissure, under the sign of the O, and in the company of feminist mythologies, lesbian erotics, the practice of revolution, materialist poetics and reparative destruction.   

Shadow Text takes on Wittig’s aesthetic-political project, which can be characterized through three beliefs—First, that all political revolution must start with language; Second, that poetics are the location where change can manifest itself on and between our bodies; And third, that language is the means of political resistance and creativity that we all have access to.  

The work develops and unfolds through its different iterations.

Full documentation on request.
 
Concept, performance, choreography: Chloe Chignell and Amina Szecsödy
Sound: Amina Szecsödy
Text: Chloe Chignell                                                                                                            Light: Leticia Skrycky
Artistic Advice: Simon Asencio
 
Shadow Text has been supported by: 
The Vlaamse Gemeenschapcommissie,Swedish arts council, WorkspaceBrussels, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, Kunstencentrum BUDA Kortrijk, KAAP Brugges and rile* books Brussels.