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Hellcat

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Play
Written / Directed / Performed by Shade Théret and Magdalena Mitterhofer

PREMIERE 
5. - 6. May 2023
co-produced by Rakete Festival Vienna
Tanzquartier Wien 

also shown at:
Pogo Bar,
KW Institute for contemporary art Berlin, 13.07.23

Sound: Alexander Iezzi
Stage Design: Joseph Bourgois
Video Vienna: Jonathan Hörnig
Photo Vienna: Joseph Bourgois
H+M: Sophia Mittherhofer, Hannah Brugger
Photo + Video (Berlin) : Emma Dudlyke
Poster: Rob Kulisek

Curatorial Vienna: Lewon Heublein
Curatorial Berlin: Léon Kruijswijk
Curatorial Assistence Berlin:  Nikolas Brummer

Warped and forced back inwards, rage implodes as frustration, obsession or psychosis.
With Hellcat, Shade Théret and Magdalena Mitterhofer investigate implosions of female rage leading to uncontrolled expressive moments, if not outbursts.They depart from two confessional references:
Fragments from Anne Sexton’s Live or Die (1966) are restructured following the interview format of Paolo Pasolini’s Comizi d’amore (1965).

These sources respectively deal with mental illnesses and mother-daughter relationships, and stances on love and sexuality from representatives of a variety of social brackets in Italy at the time. 
The opposing spheres on stage – the domestic and the public – initially present the two characters as each other’s antithesis. Mitterhofer sits relaxed in a house-like structure,
and laughs manically. Dressed in a red silky dress adorned with glitters, Théret’s movements on an elevated stage element are slow and determined, breathing audibly controlled.
As the choreography unravels, a dialectical pull and push happens several times for various, ambiguous reasons.As such, Théret and Mitterhofer explore origins of destruction, hysteria, violence, and intimate resistance.
Ultimately, they point out shifting dynamics between female subjects, set within the larger defining mechanisms of society. 
(Léon Kruijswijk)    

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