Chantal, the body is a text longing for perspective

A living anatomical doll dissects itself with words in order to constantly renegotiate bodily boundaries: the unlikely intersection between lesbian* verbal intimacies, colonial-patriarchal medical history and performance art.

In her piece “Chantal, the body is a text longing for perspective”, Viennese dance, voice and performance artist Veza Fernández shows an intimate anatomic spectacle that discloses the body as an overflowing text. Chantal is a prismatic figure out of which emerge the different voices on stage. She is a living anatomy doll, the kind to be found in Museum La Specola in Florenz or at the Josephinum in Vienna, who challenges the audience to explore with her how to witness theatre from the limits of the skin. She blinks between eyes and ears and sighs deep inwards in order to listen. Amidst birdsong, whispers and coughs, velvety voices, flutes and pastel-coloured satin landscapes, the boundaries between the inside and outside, between the body and the world, between one’s own body and that of others, become blurred. Chantal is a lesbian Venus from whose entrails slips a restless poet, a sensual actress, a prominent wax figure, an enamoured sculptor, a croaky dancer and a promenading teacher. Chantal opens and dissects her body of many bodies with words and movement. Using imposing text worlds and flowing choreographies, amid sensuality, theory and wit, three performers radically redesign anatomical theatre in a staging of the inside beyond patriarchal norms.