The new performance by Renata Piotrowska-Auffret is the fifth performance in the Private Pieces series. In this series, the choreographer explores the politics of the female body, oscillating between the private and the public. This time the subject, matter and main character of the performance is the uterus treated with distance, humor, but also care. The choreographer’s personal desire is to look at this organ and the entire female body through the prism of aging.

Uteri Migrantes means “wandering uteruses” in Latin. For centuries, the uterus has been the focus of mostly male observations, theories and fantasies about non-normative female behavior, that is, everything that a female person “was not supposed to do”, such as shouting, laughing out loud, or making unusual gestures or movements. The main concept traveling through the ages has been the vision of the uterus as a living animal that causes a variety of female abnormalities (e.g. overturning the whites of the eyes, unnatural twisting limbs, or behaving in a way too emotional and dramatic). All the concepts that arose were aimed at controlling women – their way of life and self-expression. Which way of freeing ourselves from the historical and contemporary stigmas of wombs and female bodies resonates most in us today?

How can we rewrite history and claim the world that belongs to us and in which our home is?

 

Choreography, direction, texts: Renata Piotrowska-Auffret

Dance: Aleksandra Bożek-Muszyńska & guests 

Choreographic cooperation: Aleksandra Bożek-Muszyńska, Anna Charlotta Nordanstedt (ANNA & CO)

Costume, object: Pipa Piwosz

Music: Simon Auffret

Vocal compositions: Anna Szwajgier

Lighting design: Sławomir Matysiak

Video: Katarzyna Fabińska

Dramaturgical support: Michael de Cock, Joanna Leśnierowska, Michał Rogulski

Research: Natalia Miłuńska, Natalia Oniśk, Aleksandra Osowicz

Translation of the texts: Bartosz Wójcik

Co-production: KVS Brussels, Dans I Trondelag, House of Utopia, Łaźnia Nowa Theatre, Body/Mind International Festival of Dance and Performance 

Partner: The Jan and Halina Machulski Ochota Theater 

Executive Producers: Performat Production – Karolina Wycisk, Météores 

Duration: 60 minutes

Photo: Anna Błaszczyk (1-2) | Marta Ankiersztejn / Body/Mind Festival (3-4)

Reviews

Alicja Müller in „Teatr”:

“Renata Piotrowska-Auffret deals with the notion of sisterhood in the show Uteri Migrantes („wandering uteruses”), in which the titular organ appears as a blood-red, large spongy object (author: Pipa Piwosz), in the first part quasi-fairy-tale-animated by Aleksandra Bożek- Muszyńska. Although this choreography is wonderfully rocking, the show really kicks off only when the performer discards the costume and begins to embody the comedy of the hysterical organ herself, giving an astonishing display of female „overemotionality”, redundancy, rampant irrationality. Bożek-Muszyńska, with movement and gesture, repeats male myths about the uterus, and therefore femininity, while spectacularly deconstructing them and intercepting them with unbridled spasms and a stubborn, greedy pursuit of orgasmic moisture. It is no coincidence, however, that the title of the show has a plural number. In subsequent scenes, the demonic femininity is multiplied through video projections in which witch bodies croak in obscene close-ups (the oldest of them is ninety years old), and Bożek-Muszyńska is joined in real time by other dancers. Mature performers unite in a triumphant parade of overflowing, humming, shape-shifting and gurgling bodies that manifest energetic sexuality.” Read more in Polish 

 

Marcelina Obarska in „Dialog”:

“In the work Uteri Migrantes by Renata Piotrowska-Auffret, the uterus becomes a dramaturgical matrix (the protagonist of the narrative about „wandering M.”) and a plastic one, as it appears in the form of a red sleeping bag costume in which one of the performers hides. Clown tales about a figure who wanders the world can be seen as a liberating criticism of ancient and medieval theories about the alleged causes of various women’s ailments. This reason was supposed to be, among others, sexual abstinence or the uterus itself perceived as an animal wandering around the body. Laughter here becomes an exercise in reappropriation – making again your own what has been taken over by the makers of a history and knowledge.” Read more in Polish 

 

Natalia Gryczka on teatrologia.pl:

“We saw wrinkled lips, skin around the eyes, an imperfect body, somehow sick and tired. The juxtaposition of these several types of women and their bodies completely different from each other in the physical context and years lived in the world was like a dream come true for me, because it is boring to see bodies that distort our view of reality. It is thanks to such performances that we realize how beautiful the body is without limitations and fear, and this attitude was presented by the dancers in a joint dance, a ritual ending with a song about things important to each of them, with which other women or people who perceive femininity as their own could identify.” Read more in Polish 

 

Marcin Miętus on taniecpolska.pl:

Uteri Migrantes problematizes the existing images of women’s bodies, criticizing them (making fun of them) and introducing an alternative. It expands the space to include elderly, unvirtuosic, unsportsmanlike people – this is where I see the political character of this performance.” Read more in Polish