Sound theatre performance Touch(ed) tours Nicosia and Limassol

A confrontational stage piece that seeks to shake up Cypriot norms about sexuality, gender roles and freedom is coming to the island. And in English! The international sound-theatre duo Physical Plastic will present their provocative show Touch(ed) in Nicosia and Limassol next month. The solo performance uses autobiographical events to confront gender bias and cultural ideals around intimacy, both in life and in art-making itself.

Touch(ed) satirises slut-shaming and the perceived vulgarity of the single woman versus the ideal of the nuclear family and asks how performance can be a vehicle for transgressive ideals which prove difficult to uphold in real life. Arriving at the artist’s own trajectory as a married woman and mother, the work proposes that the popular cultural mythology of monogamy and motherhood is an elusive ideal for the de-sexualised mother-artist, who finds herself struggling to thrive amidst her physical metamorphosis and the demands of care-taking.

The performance will first take place at Nicosia’s Theatro Dentro on February 2, 3 and 4 before moving to Limassol’s Polychoros Synergeio for two more shows on February 10 and 11.

Conceived by performer and director Kestrel Leah, the work collages movement and original libretto with personal anecdotes and social media posts, while drawing from iconic female performances and leveraging specific dance forms in an exploration of sacred versus profane love as personified in art.

Also on stage will be Yiannis Christofides whose live score combines layered electro-acoustic soundscapes and experimental vocal processes with music inspired by the song Gravity by Womb pop musical artist They/Live. Elements of Leah’s past performance experience are echoed through visual artist Dasha Sur’s yarn sculptures, based on references to the nefarious female spirit in string games folklore.

Physical Plastic is made up of Leah and artist Yiannis Christofides, and together they create theatre at the intersection of theatricality and artistic action. Their work is driven by a reciprocal dramaturgical rhythm with autobiography at its centre, where the performance is a vessel for the multifaceted performer’s political and creative interests.

At the core of their work is the physical performer, who is able to respond to the possibilities of the stage with a spatial and sensual expressivity that reveals new relations of sound, gesture and voice. A young collaboration, they have been resident artists at Robert Wilson’s Watermill Center and received a New Music USA award for their work Alarm. In Los Angeles, they presented work at the Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theatre and collaborated with the public art organisation LAND.

The Touch(ed) performance has been developed in the framework of the Residency Programme for Performing and Live Arts at Theatro Polis OPAP/ NiMAC and is supported in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant.

Touch(ed)

Sound theatre performance by Physical Plastic. February 2-4. Theatro Dentro, Nicosia. February 10,11. Polychoros Synergeio, Limassol. 8pm. In English. www.physicalplastic.com. www.soldoutticketbox.com