Chloe Chignell + Amina Szecsödy Shadow Text

"They say that everything must be remade. They say that every word must be screened. They say our bodies are made up of language. They say our bodies are historical artifacts. They say our bodies are collective inventions. They say our bodies hold epic stories."

Shadow Text is a choreographic translation of Monique Wittig’s Les Guérillères (1971), a lesbian-feminist epic. Circular in form, the novel enacts a violent and erotic transition out of heteropatriarchal culture and into a new semiotic order of lesbian relationality. Through sound, text, and movement, Shadow Text explodes the novel, creating an immersive performance where bodily grammar cracks open the text, allowing words to act within and upon the audience’s bodies.

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 this fissure, alongside feminist mythologies, lesbian erotics, materialist poetics, and reparative destruction.

Shadow Text takes on Wittig’s aesthetic-political project and its 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.

about

Chloe Chignell (AU/BE) is an artist working across text, choreography and publishing. Her work focuses on language within a choreographic frame and invests in writing as a body building practice. Chloe graduated from a.pass (BE, 2020) and from the research cycle at P.A.R.T.S (BE, 2018). Since 2019, Chloe co-runs rile* a bookshop and project space for publication and performance with Sven Dehens. Her work has been presented across Europe and Australia, including at: NEXT Festival (2024), Pavillon ADC (2024), Batard Festival (BE, 2019) Saal Biennale (ES 2021), Moving Words Festival (NO 2021), QL2 (AU 2022), KAAP (BE 2022), Littérature etc. (FR 2022), Dancehouse (AU 2016-8), The Kier Choreographic Award (AU 2018) Kottinspektionen (SE 2019) and Venice Biennale of Dance (IT 2017) among others. Her first book was published with uhbooks in 2020 under the title The Complete Text Would Be Insufferable.
instagram.com/chloechignell/

Amina Szecsödy (b. 1995, SE) is an artist working across theatre, choreography, and visual arts. Her practice investigates the interplay of text, sound, and the body, weaving together elements of pop culture, cinema, and mythmaking. Through a process she describes as "siphoning off," she edits, layers, and recombines dissonant voices and phenomena to create works that inhabit charged spaces, both physical and symbolic. Amina graduated with a BA in Performing Arts from Malmö Theatre Academy and an MA in Choreography and Performance from Giessen University. Her works have been presented internationally, including at: KW institute for contemporary art (DE 2024), KAAP & Kunstencentrum BUDA (BE 2024), Temple Bar Gallery (IRE 2024), Künstlerhaus Mousonturm & Thalia Theater (2023,2021), Frankfurter Kunstverein (DE 2022) Køs (DK 2021) WELD (SE 2020), Inkonst (SE 2018) among others.
instagram.com/aminaszecsody/

artist talk

On Friday 17th the performance is followed by an artist talk with Q&A, from 21:45 till 22:45, moderated by Tessel Veneboer.

Tessel Veneboer is a PhD candidate in the Department of English Literature at Ghent University. There, she focuses on queer theory and investigates the role of sexuality in experimental literature. She also enjoys writing literary criticism and short stories.
instagram.com/texelles_/