G I R L I S A G U N

between autodetermination and violence

Directed by

Nina Negri : director - choreographer - performer

Isadora Pei : director - visual artist - performer

A l m a V e n u s - A j a R i o t

With : Chiara Capitani, Susanna Dimitri, Andrea Lanciotti, Nina Negri, Isadora Pei and Loic Samar

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G i r l i s a G u n is a theatre performance that explores the process of self-determination, and that attempts to reverse the collective perception of sex workers, through the issue of gender construction, the problem of violence and exploitation mechanisms, and the moral stigmatization of women as victims. Today, to say that prostitution can be a choice that should not be criminalized, both as regards the demand than the supply, means to be in a minority position. In the name of sex workers, but never of their autonomy, we claim their weakness. The word “freedom” has been replaced by the word “dignity” : a fast transition which allows to judge those who sell sexual services.

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Preciado says that "the best protection against gender violence is not the ban on prostitution but the grip of economic and political power by women and migrant minorities. In the same way, the best antidote against dominant pornography is not censorship, but the production of alternative representations of sexuality, as divergent perspectives from the normative thought.”

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Because violence can be fight only with strength, with freedom, with creativity, with positive examples : opening our imaginations. Thinking we are active and not passive, thinking we are protagonist and strong, and never victim. Because what arrives to sex workers concerns us. Because there are just body uses which are recognized as naturals or which are punished as deviants (maternity, for example, is only one of the possible uses of the body, and not the guarantee of a sexual difference, nor the guarantee of femininity).

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We are not all similar. We don’t have to share the same sensibility. But it would be beautiful if we were free to choose, in any case. This is what we call self-determination.

Collective A l m a V e n u s - A j a R i o t

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We are a group of artists, dancers, performers. We are mixed in nationalities, in ages, in experiences, in practices. The theme of self-determination is our common research. Through this subject, we explore the relation between bodies and visual images, their intersections, their possibilities. It is an open poetical process, in permanent movement. Which welcomes differences and doesn't unify.

N i n a N e g r i

Director - Choreographer - Performer

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As actress and performer she has worked, among others, with: Barbara Nicolier (Théâtre de l'Odéon - Paris, Kotor Art Festival - Montenegro, Théâtre Gerard Philipe, Comedie de Reims, Festival of Avignon - France), Jan Lauwers (Teatro Arsenale - Venice), Thomas Ostermeier (Istituto Veneto di Arti Scienze e Lettere - Venice), Jérôme Bel (Modern Art Museum - Paris), El Conde of Torrefiel (Kunstenfestivaldesarts - Brussels), ricci/forte (Artdanthé Festival - Paris, Teatro Académico Gil Vicente - Portugal, Zagreb National Theater - Croatia, Teatro India - Rome, CSS Teatro Stabile del Friuli Venezia Giulia - Udine - Italy, Comédie de Reims - France, La Raffinerie - Brussels), Cécile Loyer (RIDC - Rencontres Internationales de Danse Contemporaine - Paris), Giorgio Rossi (Sosta Palmizi - Festival Orizzonti - Tuscany), Fadhel Jaibi (Théâtre National de Chaillot - Paris, Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Italy), Blandine Masson (Théâtre de l'Odéon - Paris, Festival of Avignon, Radio France Culture), Claire de Monclin (Centre Georges Pompidou - Paris), Kai Berdholt (Odin Teatret - Bovbjerg Light House - Denmark), Cesar Brie (Teatro Europa - Armunia Festival - Tuscany), Gary Brackett (Living Theater Europa - Italy), Enrique Pardo (Pantheatre - Santiago de Chile), Nicoletta Ramorino (Teatro Wagner Milan - Italy), Felix Pons Ferrer (Conservatorio B. Marcello - Theater Biennale - Italy), Pietro Marullo (Théâtre de la Loge - Paris), Graeme Thomson and Silvia Maglioni (FID Festival - France, CNP Los Angeles Film Festival - USA), Christiane Mudra (Theater I-camp - Munich, Germany).

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As director and choreographer she wrote, realized and interpreted several performances: SiCeciEstUnCorps (in collaboration with the artist Lucile Haute and the ENSAD - Ecole Normale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs - Paris), Eurydice (video-performance by the artist Sarah Caillard Kellerman), Sailing Shell (solo from the vocal performance method of Pantheatre), Perfecta Laetitia (within the C.A.S. in Performance and Contemporary Scenic Arts, on tour in Europe and Middle East), GirlisaGun (with the Collective AlmaVenus - AjaRiot) and Carto-Graphies de Corps Migrants (work in progress in collaboration with the artist-researcher Kahena Sanaâ, the Laboratoire du Geste, the CNRS ACT-Institute, and the Musée des Arts et Metiers - Paris). She co-wrote the documentary Il Vangelo Secondo Maria with the film director Pietro Pasquetti - International Turin Film Festival - Italia Doc - Prize Avanti.

She also teaches the practice of Butoh-dance within a workshop at the Théâtre National de Chaillot and the Piccolo Teatro di Milano, and theater-dance within several laboratories in France and abroad.

I s a d o r a P e i

Director - Performer - Visual artist

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1999-2006: she becomes actress of the research theatre company Marcido Marcidorjs e Famosa Mimosa. 2006: she becomes member of the association Sinergia; she founds the FuturFestival and collaborates with CRUT at Università di Torino.

2008-2009: she takes part at “The Marriage of Medea” and in “Ur-Hamlet”, directed by Eugenio Barba, Odin Teatret. She contributes to establish the international group Jasonites followed by the actress Julia Varley.

2010-2011: with The Living Theatre Europa she participates in “Mysteries and Smaller Pieces”, “Siddhartha - the River Smiles”, “Green Terror” and “Let my brother go”.

2012: she directs “Arte del Volo, studio 1 sull’arte povera”. 

2012-2013: she holds workshops at Odin Teatret. She writes and directs “W h o – human performance”,

a drama performance creates by the group M ã h – Independent Intercultural Theatre.

2013: The Jasonites goes on tour within the European project “Caravan, Artists on the road”.

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2014: she plays in “Tomorrow”, a Nordisk Teaterlaboratorium Project by Julia Varley. She directs Sinergia in “Salted Boat - performance su materiali permeabili d'immigrazione”. She performs ans takes part at the collective direction of “Girl Is A Gun, sex workers – between violence and self-determination” in Italy and France. She directs the female collective A j a R i o t in "W (h) o – m a n, ri-flessione di immagini e corpi sull’abolizione dei sessi", now on tour.

2015: she collaborates with Ensemble Lodi Teatro creating “Dalle belle città – rapsodia teatrale di etica, libertà e uomini” and “Volver – rapsodia di strada” as assistant director and visual artist.

Now she’s working on two new projects: a solo performance and the creation of a site-specific event for the Festuge 2017 in Denmark.

She participates to many workshops with, among others: Andrzej Szcuzewski, Roger Dabert, Ella Jaroszewicz, Yves Lebreton, Thomas Walker and Gary Brackett of The Living Theatre, with Eugenio Barba, Roberta Carreri, Augusto Omolù, Julia Varley, Tage Larsen of Odin Teatret, and Rena Mirecka of the Teatr Laboratorium of Jerzy Grotowski.

G I R L I S A G U N

The publications