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big small otherwise

It’s very, very, very, very warm. We’re very, very, very, very sweaty. And we forgot which… we forgot which body part is which. We forgot which body part is which, and we touch. We touch our knee. We touch our knee and it feels…. it feels like a big warm waterfall that opens the knee and splits it in many, many pieces. Softly warmly. Our knee. Our knee is like a mountain.

big small otherwise explores the liminal space between the real and the imaginary. It implements elements of story-telling, music-making, and movement, creating an intimate performative space. big small otherwise looks into practices that deconstruct the binary rhetoric. Within this framework, the performers search for their ways of confronting the patriarchal gaze and find the politics of pleasure in expressing, re-imagining and presenting their identities.

Inspired by Paul B. Preciado's work on the body as a site of political resistance and drawing on Sara Ahmed's proposal on finding new possibilities for embodied existence,big small otherwise pushes the boundaries of the conservative theatrical conventions, encouraging fluidity.

The performers invite the audience to join them on a journey of discovery, exploring the in-between, and embracing coexistence rather than separation. big small otherwise challenges heteronormative narratives and invites the audience to experience a small but potentially impactful ‘otherwise’.

Soft bending and radical empathies

by Maciej Sado

“Micro is where I can escape and hack the system’s repetitive patterns. Unlearning what we know and doubt[ing] what we take for granted is a way I found to deconstruct its patterns.”[1]

I had a dream that the “big small otherwise” did happen. That the research could be completed. It was there. Palpable. Ready to be shared and kept there. In its potentiality. Affecting not only those close to the case. Flirting with the landscapes of delusion. Hallucinations of the past. It died perhaps this way. Or was it an oracle?

In the dream, Isadora was fearless. She followed a road of progressive feminism including all of it: rejecting the capitalist approach to the individual, accepting love, caring for the community, identities passing by or staying for coffee, the simple realities, and complex sentences. She knew how to thread them smoothly and evenly. With soft bending and radical empathy. A skill she learned young. An old weaver. A distant coder perhaps.

In that dream, or maybe another one, Isadora walked through her house, through the living room I visited once or twice myself, in a dress (I know the dress, she told me her-story); she did see the “two butterflies”[2] flying around the table. She opened the doors for some artists to come; she took care of them. Gently. Fairly. They sang a few songs together. They instantly harmonized. Everybody was nourished and simply happy. Everybody wished to stay longer. They couldn’t. She stayed alone with her father and Tobia, still talking about the imperialist-white supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy (thank you bell hooks). They shared their wor(l)ds. The father tried to understand. It looked like He did. Tobia nodded with relief.

In that dream, she left all conceivable space for discussion and dialogue – between us, the furniture, fictions, identities, hers and theirs, loves and loved ones, places of meeting, good spots for wine, cafes for good advice, old friends, unwritten songs with no happy endings, politics for now, for futures, for art, for what’s close, for you.

In that dream, the Giraffe “fff” ate the mountain of “T” and the giant “mmm.”[3]

There she was a storyteller with a specific micro-background and an enormous heart. A musician with practice in care, softness, and dreams. A technician with music deeply guiding her. An artist with love. A song with the power of the river.

The river that starts as a stream. Cold and shy yet persistently carving her way through. Halfway through any country (nations here losing their importance to nature), any landscape, becoming a force capable of carrying humans and non-humans, providing energy and nourishment, bringing life, and caressing her banks.

There is a raging progressive feminist and a crying child. Combined. Together walking hand in hand. A micro (and by default macro certainly) intersectionality with this soft approach to the human and her-stories. As they would be a part of them. A body inside the body. A collective body to learn and unlearn what’s necessary.

And I still hear “Fire, in my tears.” The first original song I ever heard from her. This fire extended. It became her power element. It fed on grief, on love. This “genuine one” as “a combination of care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility, and respect.”[4] And the fire moved on to be shared. To ignite unknown spaces and share some timid yet very supportive light.

And then I woke up. Oh, wait. No. I forgot to fall asleep. It wasn’t a dream at all. It is just how I met and learned to appreciate and love her and her work. These two. Inextricably together. Connected. Forceful. Fierce.

[1]  from A GRASPING THE FEELING by Isadora Tomasi, 2023

[2]see  more:  A GRASPING THE FEELING by Isadora Tomasi, 2023

[3]  notes from the research presentation Maleducata Sessuale by Isadora Tomasi

[4]All About Love: New Visions by bell hooks, 1999

Credits

Concept, dramaturgy and direction: Isadora Tomasi in close collaboration with Konstantinos Chatzikypraios & Rita Bifulco; 
Performers: Rita Bifulco & Isadora Tomasi; 
Light & set design: Paulina Prokop
; Tube neon lights creation: Otakar Zwartjes; 
Costume design: Nell Schwan; 
Sound design: Isadora Tomasi & Rita Bifulco; 
Image: Moa Holgersson; 
Advisors: Daniela Bershan & Bruno Listopad; Tutor: Miguel Angel Melgares; Dramaturgical support: Maciej Sado

Special thanks to Fernando Belfiore for being there night and day and for guiding my choices with so much grace and understanding; to Tiana Hemlock-Yensen for her playful insights and for holding the space so gently; to Rebekka Bangerter for sharing her writing skills and supporting my process, to Fariborz Karimi for his feedback, support and for being there in times of darkness, to Agat Sharma & Wojciech Grudziński for the generous feedback and support, to Piotr Urbaniec for sharing his poetics; to ChatGPT; finally, to Lara Staal for understanding and supporting the work and guiding the process in “the step forward into..”

Special thanks also to the dead ones, Raffaella Carrà, Monica Vitti, Rita, Maria Pia, Maurizio, Nonna Betty, Nonna Angela and Nonna Stella <3

Made possible with a financial contribution from the ATD-Aart Janszen Fund