projects - perfodiva

“we’re not a woman”

drag queen/ drag king

performance artists: ani kto dima belysh

во время перформанса я пикетировала с плакатом “we’re not a wonan” до этого переодевшись на сцене из условно женской одежды в спортивный костюм димы

на обратной стороне плаката я прикрепила фрагмент из феминистского романа “лесбийское тело” и зачитала его в микрофон. дима переодевался на сцене вместе со мной. он отдал мне свой костюм, который надевает на свои перформансы уже несколько лет. после этого дима надевал платье и не мог закрепить корсет на спине. это не было манипуляцией.

платье было не готово в этот момент на площадку вышли зрители и стали помогать диме завязать платье разными способами, даже зашить я сняла шнурок с одного ботинка и отдала им

мы показывали перформанс в пространсте “dust”, в этот вечер там был караоке-вечер. я не люблю караоке. в конце перформанса дима предложил мне фристайлить под любой трек, который я назову. я назвала трек “сублимация” темы креста у человека за пультом не получилось найти трек и он запустил видео с youTube, оно выстроено как пост-караоке. это были наши титры

мой текст о перформансе в пространстве “dust”: https://t.me/perfodiva/969

караоке-титры/видео от зрителей: https://t.me/perfodiva/976

“cut piece”

yoko ono performance reenactement

a part of Inexplicably Wonderful project, re|deconstructed and updated iconic performance art pieces. 2021, access point vii summer art fest, saint petersburg

— reconstructed performances from the past adjusted to the modern day reality and culture. in art theory, such reconstructive practices are called reenactments.

vanya demidkin, artem tomilov — curators, concept makers, project authors of Inexplicably Wonderful.

‘cut piece’ is one of multiple performances of the project, the only feminist one in the series

“being cis male curators, we consider it unethical for us to represent art made by women. instead, we decided to extract ourselves from the position of artists and follow wishes and advice of the performer — ani. they identify as a non-binary person.”

a commentary by artem tomilov

an article on the experience of participation in this performance by ani kto

“I have no fun anymore”

contemporary dance and site-specific performance residence

curators: victor vilisov, julia blokhina

4 hour long performance within a site-specific theatre and contemporary dance lab “eight indefinite movements”

20 participants from different cities spent 9 days at a bearing plant and other city locations while researching the ways a city can be a performance character and the strategies of returning it to its citizens

“not theatre, yay! this is a situation where there is space, if there are questions and a longing.”

“twenty completely different people with various biographies joined this horizontal relationship and composed a four hour long performance “I have no fun anymore”. they are ready to show it for themselves and those who would like to join. they’ve been assembling an hour long audio performance for themselves and have been listening to it on tram rides; they’ve been visiting remote parks and have been doing solo movement fragments on queer poetry; they’ve been coming to the black sea seashore reflecting on how the postwork era changes the image and expectations of labour and rest for artists”

video: alik keshisyan. performers: julia platonova, ani kto

“my traumatizing experience of studying in theatre institute and working at theatres (collective denial, silent treatment in dressing rooms for every attempt to say ‘hi’ and constant guilt caused by non-acceptance) — everything busted like a fucking firework of love: for the people, for absolutely different people, who were open to use the “eight indefinite movements” lab as a process of exploration”

more about the lab

“i am dancing while you’re looking at me”

experimental ballet by theatre company ‘nemxat’

stage curator: alexandr shumilin

the stage work consists of 16 unique stories by 16 performers aged from 19 to 23, who chose their favorite tracks and danced their confessions to them. none of the participants has dancing skills. in movement, each of them answers three questions: “what do I like about my body?”, “what do I not like about my body?”, and “what am I dancing about?”. in following, every spectator in the audience involuntarily starts posing these questions to themselves.

www.instagram.com

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CX6roM-NghF/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

“we like the lightness and compactness that allowed us to sleep, rolled up in a seat in the bus going towards caucasus for 23 hours, or in an indian train on the third bench, that we bought for three passengers travelling from goa to new dehli

we don’t like the weakness, that seemed to be in bundle with gendered upbringing. for example, it doesn’t allow us to do pull-ups or avoid potential rape. we don’t like brow wrinkles, that appeared pretty early, because we frown a lot when analyzing things

we want to confront our experiences of discrimination by men from different periods of our life with something new. we are not sure it will happen, but that’s our feelings for now”

“six days at the bar”

site-specific performance, micro-fest 2021

a laboratory of performative open communication, within which we and our co-curator seryozhi che (they/them) did a gender transition in the ‘fogel’ bar toilet

photo: a screenshot of double gender transitioning in live recording

“we and seryozhi che both have personal motivation to execute this laboratory. we’ve got something to reflect on and we do have a need for sincere talk and fluidity. so, we fulfill it in the solely present circumstances”

26.08 we did a conventional carsharing drive while simultaneously talking in live feed. then, we watched ‘queer the stage’ by victor vilisov in the bar

“the day before the show we and ani met in the bar and, not knowing anything about the performance yet, thought over what could it be like. we thought about the fact that it is a laboratory of open communication, hence we had to vocalize. so, we started to invent different mechanisms for this vocalization. and then we remembered the main point of vitya’s ‘queer the stage’, a queer performance history, — the affect and radical creativity. that’s when ani suggested a great and simple format — to change each other’s clothes in order to overcome the distance between us, built by well rehearsed gender roles.

we chose to do it in the toilet, threw our clothes everywhere inside, put a white light on the ceiling, and turned on a 50 minute long track presidiomodelo — klammklang.”

(seryozhi che, full text here)

“25 lines”

performative urbanist research of the vasilievsky island

organized by the ‘linii’ library

lab curator: dima belysh

“contemporary routing of the city allows to include the opinion of another and fixate it with a geolocation. this way, such commentaries become incognito mediators of the trail. what is important is that these were made in one of the critical states: total acceptance of the place, its unacceptance or a state of owing, being embarrassed to not leave feedback when asked”

“kind of an architecturally nice building”

polina kardymon, alina shklyarskaya, ani kto. 21st line

online users’ feedback for different spots on the 21st line in audio representation. the virtual walk became the starting point and opinions of strangers turned into signals of real presence

the artefact of the 21st line. a cube with only one door, from behind which one can hear human voices

“cardboard door”

polina kardymon, alina shklyarskaya, ani kto. 20th line

“three drifts through the 20th line of vasilievsky island and three self-instructory options to execute it. photographical and textual reports of the walks are placed on a swollen cardboard panel as a subjective experience of a passerby”

t.me/ani_kto