In specific court settings and mythical worlds, Edwarda Gurrola, Johnny Mhanna, and Faris Cuchi Gezahegn in IL*LEGAL MONSTERS evoke places of boundaries and negotiations born sometimes out of fantasy, sometimes out of bureaucracy. They ask about migration policies and legal processes, nomad identities, and motives for aiding escape. The performers transform into coyotes, snakeheads, sharks: all terms signifying animals or mythological creatures, but also people smugglers and escape helpers. They signify smart, cunning monsters, courageous and transgressive trickster characters disobeying rights by occupying border spaces in different ways or even expanding them. This second research project in the JUSTITIA! Performative Formats on Law and Justice series deals with borders, escape, asylum and courts.

To complement the performance, there will be workshops on Fri, 6 and Sat, 7 October as well as a roundtable on Sun, 8 October.

Gin Müller is a director, theatre scholar, performer, and queer ar/ctivist. Gin’s works tackle activist and political topics as well as collective forms of collaboration both onstage and offstage.

Selina Shirin Stritzel is a freelance theatre-maker, political education worker, cultural scientist, and trans-medial artist. In her works, she deals with post-migrant perspectives and queer-feminist mindsets.

Edwarda Gurrola is a theater and film actress. She has been a part of various TV, film and performance formats since childhood. In 2020, Gurrola won the Mexican Film Award "Ariel" for Best Actress.

Johnny Mhanna was born in 1991 in Damascus, Syria. He has lived in Austria since 2015 and featured in numerous German-language productions, e.g., at Werk X, the Wiener Festwochen (in the celebrated production Traiskirchen. Das Musical) and with Theater im Bahnhof, Graz.

Faris Cuchi Gezahegn (they/them/she/her) is a femme non-binary and intersectional LGBTQIA*/Human Rights advocate/activist who uses multifaceted mediums as conduits in securing the sanctity of humanity that we all deserve.  They are living archivists, Ethiopian ZEGA/QUEER knowledge and culture conjurors/summoners, multi-disciplinary artists, poets, style activists, and part of the PCCC (Politically Correct Comedy Club) ensemble and many-festation that will arise in their future selves.

Annemarie Arzberger lives and works in Vienna. She studied contextual painting at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna (2012–2021) and now works as a visual artist, in puppet-making and costume design. Her output includes numerous (group) exhibitions and performances at such venues as the Schubert-Theater in Vienna and brut Wien.

Katarina Csanyiova, born 1982 in Slovakia, works in the fields of performance, theatre, film, writing and spatial installation. Her focus is on texts and languages in action, which she applies in various performative contexts. katarinacs.org

Roxanne Szankovich combines electric violin with effect pedals, loop station and vocals in her instrumentation. After studying violin, she became deeply involved in music improvisation and knows how to blur genre boundaries. She is active as a studio musician, composer and live musician in bands as well as in interaction with performative arts.