WORK BODY

Due to an injury, WORK BODY cannot be presented in its original form. Instead, we invite you to a reduced, concert-style alternative version.

“Rise up! Schwing dich auf! Work it!” In this piece, we see Austrian choreographer Michael Turinsky busy building a performance stage – for both himself and Antonio Gramsci (1891 – 1937), co-founder of the Italian Communist Party. Hammering and singing away on stage while clad in overalls and safety boots, Michael Turinsky seeks to unite the “disabled” and the “working” body, thereby creating a countercultural choreographic response to hegemonic fantasies of masculinity, some 90 years after Gramsci’s death. Assembled in a circle around the performer, the audience bears witness to a concentrated physical process – sometimes watching in silent observation, and sometimes erupting in enthusiastic applause. Shifting between political agitation and performative gesture, this work offers a decelerated, minimalist experience, one that simultaneously provides an understanding yet critical perspective on the right-wing shift that is currently occurring among members of the working class.

WORK BODY is one of two productions FOR EVERYONE selected by SPIELART’s advisory board for accessibility, in which barriers have been comprehensively removed. For more information, please visit Accessibility.