Make Your Body Your Machine + LEADER + Making the World Work by Ernestyna Orlowska

Ernestyna Orlowska presents the national premiere of a triptych comprising three site-specific works in which performance, video, art, fashion, and design come together to create sets that playfully question key aspects of our neoliberal society.

Make Your Body Your Machine

concept, choreography, performance Ernestyna Orlowska

A woman on a scooter, the soundtrack from “Rocky”, a rider’s backpack: what follows is a mixture of dance, martial arts, and fitness training. In her performance, Ernestyna Orlowska reflects on the body within the gig economy, where it becomes the extension of an app and of an exploiting business model. Her sporty outfit and the “Just Eat” slogan reveal the obsession for optimization – as if performance, beauty and the act of eating were such simple issues. In doing so, Orlowska also asks herself the question: do we have a body or are we that body?

LEADER

concept and choreography Ernestyna Orlowska performer Izabela Orzelowska commissioned byKlöntal Triennale

In LEADER Ernestyna Orlowska deals with the contradictions of the neo-liberal society through an evocative game of interactions between body and matter. The performer, Izabela Orzelowska, wears an orange suit covering her whole body, halfway between a protective work garment and a princess dress. She recites 101 advice on productivity while handling a 26-kilogram lead-sheet roll. This object is simultaneously a burden and a mirror: its toxicity and weight evoke the invisible tribute paid to a constant self-optimization, while the fatigue clashes against the absurd logic of the efficiency culture. Its title hints both at the metal and at the role as a social ideal, and lays bare the toxic quest for productivity and success. This double sense triggers a critical reflection on what leadership means in a society that favours productivity over anything else.

Making the World Work

concept, choreography, performance Ernestyna Orlowska commissioned by Centre d’Art Neuchatel

Accompanied by Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero”, the performance shows the disassembly of a laptop into its components by using archaic tools. Orlowska merges manual work and technology, reminding of the raw material extraction processes. She highlights the invisible work sequences hidden inside the technological items we use everyday and examines the resources basic to our modern world.

The performances are part of the programme of Danae Festival, an international multidisciplinary project by Teatro delle Moire, dedicated to experimentation that supports and promotes hybrid languages of the scene, using theatrical and non-theatrical spaces, as well as urban spaces in the city of Milan.

With the support of Istituto Svizzero.

For the full programme, click here.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

Fabbrica del Vapore
Milano

Tickets are available for purchase here.