MDLSX

Gender-fluid rebel Silvia Calderoni does a powerhouse star turn in this show by Italian theatre company Motus. The performer’s own life story is crossbred with fiction, producing a work of genre blending and gender bending. Using dance, text, video, music and the power of plain old speech, Calderoni and company throw haymakers at the patriarchy.

This is a performance in the truest sense of the word, contrasting the roles we’re given with those we’re free to choose for ourselves. The work of gender theorist Judith Butler looms large, as do the twin legacies of rock ‘n’ roll and DJ music. You could call this an intellectual dance party—it’s both visceral and theoretical, provoking contemplation and ecstasy in equal measure. Changing identities and costumes at will, Calderoni shows our notions of gender and sexuality for what they are: barriers we can break down.

A perceptions-scrambling work… Silvia Calderoni must be made of mercury, or some improbably liquid element that has yet to be discovered.

—The New York Times

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