In her new performance AWOL (Absent Without Leave), Malika Fankha explores the synergies between humans and nature’s mystical creatures. Although elves, trolls and other hybrid forms of life may resemble the human shape, they manage to evade the notion of normativity. Due to their queer and volatile essence, they challenge our thinking in stereotypes and dualities and embody the concept of identity as a malleable force. AWOL questions the hierarchy of corporealities in the physical, spiritual and virtual realms and advocates new ways of coexistence and kindred among species.
In Awolonia, a place better than reality, residents are mercurially utopian. They keep secrets, shift shapes, change names, and appear in myriad disguises. They uncover and liberate their desires and torments, transgress boundaries, they slip into and out of dangerous and vulnerable places in an ongoing craving for connection, haunting the liminal spaces between imagined and artificially constructed borders.
Malika Fankha studied theatre in Zurich and contemporary dance in Salzburg (SEAD) and NYU (Tisch School of Performing Arts). She works internationally as a dancer, sound poet and DJ. Her work aims to blur the hierarchies between genres and collapse the threshold of binary and normative social codes. Using multiple narratives with both body and voice, she spectrums the utopian and dystopian characteristics of pop culture, posthumanism and trivia while at the same time declaring everything to be within the textual, visual and emotive space of poetry. She was part of imagetanz 2020 with her performance Oxy Moron. A Cyborg Utopia.
Artistic direction, performance Malika Fankha Objects Ana Rajcevic Costume Goran Bugaric Makeup Valerie Reding & Ronaldo Cosmo Cleverson Lights Marek Lamprecht & David Baumgartner Sound Dark Euphoria feat. Mirza Kebo Video Timotheus Tomicek & Jannik Schleicher Dramaturgical Advice Anna Mendelssohn Outside Eye Denice Bourbon Production mollusca productions Dramaturgical Production Advice Marc Streit Choreographic Assistance Asher O'Gorman
A co-production by FANKS, Tanzhaus Zürich and brut Wien
Residency partners SoArt Millstättersee (AT), BUDA Kortrijk (BE), Tanzhaus Zürich (CH), Huggy Bears (AT), "The Artists Are Present" Brunnenpassage Wien (AT)
With the kind support of the City of Zurich’s Department of Cultural Affairs, the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs, Kanton Zürich, the Embassy of Switzerland in Austria, the Austrian Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport, Austrian Cultural Forum Brussels, ACT OUT (initiated by IG Freie Theater, supported by BMEIA)
accessible
Nordwestbahnstraße 8-10, 1200 Vienna
Subway: U1, U2 (Praterstern), U4 (Friedensbrücke), U6 (Dresdnerstraße) Tram: 5 (Nordwestbahnstraße) Bus: 5A (Wasnergasse)
not accessible
Zieglergasse 25, 1070 Wien
Subway: U3 (Zieglergasse), Tram: 49 (Westbahnstraße / Zieglergasse)
Eschenbachgasse 11 / Ecke Getreidemarkt, 1010 Vienna
U-Bahn: U4, U1 (Karlsplatz), Tram: 1, 2, D, 71 (Burgring), Bus: 57A (Getreidemarkt)