MULTIRISING THE OTHER IN I

English

Rita Vilhena, once a creator at the Production House, is back for Dance Week. She uses old film footage of herself as a highly sexualized young woman. Between the images from the past and the movements of the current body, the ballerina transforms her story to gain control over her own identity.
 

For her dance performance, Vilhena uses never-finished footage from Nether Ballerina or Rottingdam. Filmmaker Demetri Estdelacropolis filmed the then young contemporary ballerina Rita Vilhena. The lens explored the image of the highly sexualized young woman, in everyday tasks such as personal hygiene, sleeping or waking up, and on the other hand in masturbation scenes, or performing household chores without underwear. All these micro-stories emphasized the image of the ballerina as a sexualized character.

From the archive of about 150 hours of filmed footage, the ballerina re-edited this period of her life to make way for a new interpretation of the traces the filmmaker left in her. With this work, the ballerina performs a creative exercise in self-representation, to gain control over her own life story and her own identity. By distancing herself from the accusatory tone of the second wave of feminism, she creates a healing work.

Between the images from the past and the movements of the current body, the ballerina transforms the gestures from the film into a new dance, giving them a new meaning. MULTIRISING THE OTHER IN I is a reckoning with the past; it is a new poetic-sensitive narrative about what the construction of memory can be and, consequently, the possibility of living in a freer and more inclusive future.