MONSTRA

MONSTRA, an invented word for a female monster, is a choreographic performance by five women and seven plants. The work raises questions of our complex relation to nature as well as of sexuality and gender.

About MONSTRA

Choreographic performance, 50 min

Historically women’s involvement with the surrounding nature has often been condemned as witchcraft and severely punished, or perceived as a domestic and decorative relationship. Reminiscent of a ritual, MONSTRA by Elisabete Finger and Manuela Eichner, sets the classic against the absurd and the organic against the artificial. In the encounter between these contrasts, many of our cultures’ arbitrary ideas of human’s position in relation to plants and of acceptable female behavior are manifested.

MONSTRA is performed by five women and seven plants. Elisabete Finger and Manuela Eichner refer to the performance as a choreography-collage, made up by independent choreographic cells – that attach and detach from each other rather brutally, as if snipped by scissors. Overwhelming in its physicality, the work elicits thoughts around our complex relationship to nature as well as to sexuality and gender. From the aseptic minimalistic beginning to the chaotic end, the bodies of women and plants become progressively more wild, unpredictable, empowered and potentially also dangerous.

* “MONSTRA” is an invented word generally standing for the feminine of Monster in Portuguese (Monster is always masculine in grammatical Portuguese).

About Manuela Eichner and Elisabete Finger

Manuela Eichner (b. 1980, Foz do Iguaçu) is an artist based in São Paulo and Berlin.

Elisabete Finger (b. 1984, Arroio do Tigre) is a performance artist and choreographer based in São Paulo.