thirst for red 

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performance, may 11, 2024

The Július Koller Society, Nová Cvernovka, Bratislava

 

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“To be a woman is to be an actress. Being feminine is a kind of theater, with its appropriate costumes, décor, lighting, and stylized gestures ”

 

Susan Sontag, The Double Standard of Ageing.

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I'm thirsty for red, I'm thirsty for an estrogen drink. I bite into a red apple with hunger, I smell the scent of a rose that has its thorns pricking my breast. I don't resist pain, I enjoy it.

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On the one hand, passive (sleeping beauty) waiting to be liberated. On the other hand, she is active in creating her own stories. I am Maria Magdalena in exile, wearing rose perfume and pondering Cleopatra's poison.

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I celebrate various iconographies of femininity, but I also criticize its fetishization and sexualization.

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Her ideal is unattainable, but I still desire it.

The anatomy of femininity is the anatomy of the rose. I dissect it, I examine its scent and its sharp thorns.

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Two poles battle within me: obedience and rebellion, seductress and humble saint.

I ask myself which decision is my own and what I have been forced to make.

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I too am "a modern day woman with weak constitution"