Show-Body project

A performance followed by a conversation and workshop for students in upper secondary school. The project's thematic starting point is understandings and experiences of the body - how do we relate to ourselves and others as bodies?

Show Body Project is based on understandings and experiences of the body. The body can be understood as part of the world and at the same time as a demarcation of the self, it is both object and subject. We both have bodies and are bodies at the same time. Our understanding of the body shapes how we experience ourselves and others as bodies.

From our earliest days, we are socialized into cultural norms for movement, in parallel with the natural exploration of the body's senses and functions. Encountering ideals of bodily behavior and representation shapes our understanding of our own and others' bodies. Do our bodies evolve from nature to culture as we grow up? Do we gradually lose our grip on an understanding of the body as an inseparable part of ourselves as individuals? Or is the development less unidirectional - the sexualized body in the music video is perhaps closer to our natural way of moving than we want to admit? And how does the increasing sexualization of culture affect young (and old) people's body image and self-image?

The project started with a wondering about how culturally "burdened" movements feel "inside", what they feel like to do. Our culture has labeled some movements as sexual and vulgar. Swinging your hips, shaking your breasts or rolling over another body does not necessarily feel sexual from the "inside". Is it possible to "take back" the body in motion?

The project's title plays on two meanings of the English word show. On the one hand, a show implies an objectification of the body, where it is presented to others as an object of entertainment or pleasure. At the same time, show can be understood as a verb, to show, where the focus is on the subjective act of showing something to someone else. In Show Body Project we balance between these two understandings of the word.