MEDUSA

(c) Doris Neuhauser - Photo of swinging aerial Medusa

As part of the elective module “Trust in Change: On world politics- overcoming structural political boundaries by thinking with the body” led by VestAndPage at HOME OF PERFORMANCE PRACTICES, this blog critically reflects my own practice as a circus artist and activist through the use of Medusa as a method of embodyment, resistance, and survival. The lecture introduced global political questions like capitalism, colonialism, and biopolitics, and challenged us to think about oppression through our performative and personal practices. This led me to re-think, and elaborate a fraction of our performance BEATCH N CANDY[1] in which we use plastic as an aerial apparatus, that tears whilst climbing it, and which we call ‘Medusa’[2]. The name was chosen due to my first visual interpretation of a jellyfish (Italian: medusa). Then the symbolic and aesthetic links to the mythological figure, and the feminist concept it questions, became a central influence in exploring the creation process from a political perspective. My personal experience with rape and victim blaming, bonds me to Medusa´s story and motivated me to dive deeper into the political importance and feminist reflections regarding my artistic choices. In BEATCH N CANDY, I choose to stay vague in order to reach a vast audience without explicitly discussing gender-based violence. Here, I want to use Medusa explicitly to push my practice in writing and performing further. Through my research, I expand political questions on artistic practice, integrating these elements to transform acrobatic movements into political themes. I discover not only the symbolic meanings and images that can be created through my body[3], but also the meanings of the fight and the play

with,

of,

as,

next to

Medusa.

In this blog, I will focus on Ovid´s version of the myth, discuss various feminist approaches like Jude Ellison Sady Doyle, Hélène Cixous, Lizzie Skurnick, Mary Beard, Alma Ali, and my artistic interpretation of Medusa within experimental circus performance. In a further development[4] of BEATCH N CANDY Medusa[5] stands for resistance, transformation, and the environmental crisis[6] informing my experimentation with gaze and disintegration.

(c) Dalila Riccetti - video cut of BEATCH N CANDY

First, I would like to recap the most famous version of Medusa´s myth by the Roman poet Ovid in Metamorphoses[7]: Medusa, one of the three Gorgon sisters, is the only one who is mortal. She is a beautiful virgin that Poseidon rapes in Athenas´s sacred temple. Out of jealousy, Athena punishes Medusa instead of the perpetrator by cursing her to petrify anyone who looks at her and condemns her to have snakes instead of her beautiful hair. Later, Perseus beheads Medusa in her sleep with the help of a reflective shield to avoid directly looking at her. Even after death, her head still has the power of the deadly gaze and is used as a weapon placed on Athena´s armour.

Obviously, “the mythological tale is a patriarchal horror story. A sexual assault victim turned serpent monster”[8]. Medusa is a double victim; she is a survivor of rape[9] blamed and punished for the violence that was done to her. In myths and tales, the transformation from a victim to a monster is not unique: women who do not obey, who transgress, or simply survive patriarchal violence are often depicted as witches, monsters, and other dangerous creatures. Jude Ellison Sady Doyle, an American feminist author, in her book “Dead Blondes and Bad Mothers: Monstrosity, Patriarchy, and the Fear of Female Power” (2019) explains that in a patriarchal society built for men, the feminine is always depicted as monstrous: Because it deviates from the male norm, and because it is a danger to the very existence of patriarchy. Women are not recognised as human beings but are potentially dangerous monsters that must always be controlled. Men´s obsession with control comes from the fear that women can break free and refuse to obey. So, as men created patriarchy, they also created monsters; distorted powerful beings with desires and sexuality, whose place must be outside society, like the primordial female body that takes and gives life at will[10]. The terror of such power has produced an infinite number of monstrous images of women: women who instead of vaginas have teeth[11], wounded open women, the deadly gaze and serpent hair (Doyle, 2019).

Nowadays, the myth of Medusa is used “to raise questions about violence and discrimination against women” (Ali, 2024, p. 1). But words like “witch”, “slut” or “monster” that people use to call non-normative women are not only a discrimination, they are not even the punishment for being different, they are the “justification for the punishment”(Skurnick, 2020, p. 115). Society does not punish women because they are monstrous – society labels them as such to justify punishing us, shifting the responsibility from the perpetrator to the survivor herself and rationalising abuse, silencing, and exclusion as necessary or protective actions.

(c) Martina Burchini - serpent/tentacle hair

Medusa takes back the power and femininity, returning the gaze to those who try to control, judge, or objectify women. The deadly gaze reminds me of the discomfort and following rage that I often feel when being objectified, observed, commented on, reduced to my appearance and sexualised without consent. In those moments, I wish to have Medusa´s power to petrify. This recognition shifted my view on Medusa´s struggle to see her potential for transformation and empowerment. As bell hooks reminds us “there is power in looking” (2015, p. 115). From a black feminist perspective, the oppositional gaze is a tool for reclaiming agency. This inspires me to expand the performance further and to explore how the gaze can become a weapon and a refusal. In this spirit of resistance, I shaved my head bald.

I become a female bald monster.

I am a monster.

I am Medusa.

I am the survivor and I am the blamed.

But I am also the laughing monster.

I reclaim my gaze.

I reclaim my power.

I reclaim my body.

I am Medusa.

I explore what it is like to live in a female body that resists obeying the norm[12] and how Medusa is not only an aerial equipment, a performances or a story but a method.

A method that is reflected by the fragility of the material that I use in the aerial equipment and that stands for the structural breakdown of patriarchal systems. The instability is intentionally reflected in the openness to interpretation of the audience within the performance to understand or simply enjoy the visual effects and circus acrobatics whilst I unpack the feminist reflection through writing in this blog. I see this dual communication as part of my practice: sensorial performance and reflective writing.

Finally, I cannot discuss Medusa and feminist resistance without referencing Hélène Cixous, French philosopher and writer, who in her essay “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1976) urges women to take up space in writing and their bodies, to never be silenced and erased. She claims that Medusa is a misunderstood figure of female power. “You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing” (Cixous, 1976, p. 885). Inspired by this perspective, I reclaim my space and agency through this writing. I deepen my understanding of Medusa as a myth and recognise her as a methodology. This engagement across theory, body and practice allows me to expand conversations between art, politics and circus. The political urgency of (academic) writing about, for, next to, before, and after performances once more becomes crystal clear. This way, writing can become activism.

I continue to read and embody the mythical figure of Medusa, moving between my own experience, myth, and aesthetic choices to open a deep discussion of transformation, survival, and resistance.

Medusa is no longer just a circus equipment or a character: she becomes a method.

A method to write and to move.

A method to resist.

A method of survival.

(c) Mor Barak @indiemotion - Medusa Solo Act

[1] BEATCH N CANDY is an experimental circus performance, that premiered on 21.03.2025 in Vienna, thanks to the funding of the Federal Ministry Republic of Austria Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport. BEATCH N CANDY | Amina Riccetti

[2] Using a Mini-Aerial-Hoop as an upper base and putting recycled plastic bands on it, this prop functions like a multicord. During the material research phase, I tried different ways to hang the plastic tentacles off the hoop and tested the breaking loads and points of the material.

[3] I am a white, European, abled, female identifying person wearing a nude costume and having a bald shaved head in this performance.

[4] In a two weeks residency at Trap Zirkus Zeit at the end of May 2025 I will dive into the disintegration of materiality, beauty and the development of rage throu the gaze focusing on Medusa as a method to create a performance called "Seafoam".

[5] Even today, the image of Medusa's beheading serves as a powerful cultural metaphor for the suppression of female power (Beard, 2022). Angela Merkel and Hillary Clinton have been repeatedly depicted with their faces in Caravaggio´s painting of Medusa or Cellini´s statue. Clinton´s depictions as Medusa have been sold as T-shirts, coffee mugs, bags, and more, changing the original “Triumph” into “Trump”. It is alarming to see this normalisation of gender-based violence and the exclusion of women from power, justified by myths. But it may serve as a reminder of how much feminist work, we still need to do globally. At the same time, these reinterpretations risk becoming a trend (view Versace Logo) rather than addressing “intersectional aspects of gender, race, class and sexuality that shape women´s experiences”(Ali, 2024, p. 9). For an examination of the interpretations of Medusa in art and literature, tracing her transformation from a dreaded monster to feminist empowerment check: "The Medusa Myth Through Time: Monster to Feminist Symbol," The Medusa Myth Through Time: Monster to Feminist Symbol – By: Alexis Plumaj 

[6] The use of plastic for the tentacles/serpents of our aerial Medusa questions our environmental responsibilities, consumerism, and degradation, which opens a vast other component that I will leave for another blog entry.

[7] In Ovid´s version, the Roman gods Neptune and Minerva replace Poseidon and Athena, though I will use the Greek names for consistency. Earlier versions of Medusa depicted her as a protective symbol warding off evil and threats. Ovid adapted the original Greek myth, reducing her to a head only at the end, echoing her earliest representations. Further, in Ovid´s retelling, Medusa´s story is not presented by herself but from the perspective of Perseus.  https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph4.htm

[8] https://www.boshemiamagazine.com/blog/the-face-of-our-own-rage-medusa accessed 28.03.2025

[9] I use the term survivor of rape instead of victim of rape referring to my own experience and the essay of Kate Harding in Pretty Bitches (Skurnick, 2020, pp. 90–102).

[10] Queering the Creation Story: Painting Tiamat/Tehom - Believe Out Loud The myth of the primordial goddess Tiamat is highly influential for the developing performance LAMORROSS. La Mor Ross (@lamorross) • Instagram-Fotos und -Videos

[11] Vagina dentata myths exist around the world: Vagina Dentata Myths From Around the World. In India the myth has numerous variations (Elwin, 1943) and Washingtonpost (2014) even explained rape cult through it. How the mythical ‘toothed vagina’ helps explain India’s rape culture - The Washington Post

[12] Beatch N Candy - Medusa Solo, Amina Riccetti. In the solo act Medusa, that I performed on 06.04.2024 in Kristallwerk, Graz, AT, I still used a bald wig. Only on the 15th of March 2025 I found the courage to really shave my head completely bald. It was a two weeks process and I will go into details about my choice to shave, the meaning of (body)hair and beauty in another blog entry.

 REFERENCES

Ali, A., 2024. Medusa’s Evolution: From Mythological Monster to Feminist Icon – A Reflection of Shifting Societal Narratives? Int. J. Multidiscip. Res. 6, 28089. https://doi.org/10.36948/ijfmr.2024.v06i05.28089

Beard, M., 2022. Frauen & Macht: Ein Manifest, Fischer Taschenbibliothek. FISCHER Taschenbuch, Frankfurt am Main.

Cixous, H., 1976. Journal of Women in Culture and Society. Laugh Medusa, Translated by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen 1, 875–893.

Doyle, S., 2019. Dead blondes and bad mothers: monstrosity, patriarchy, and the fear of female power, First Edition. ed. Melville House, Brooklyn.

Elwin, V., 1943. THE VAGINA DENTATA LEGEND. Br. J. Med. Psychol. 19, 439–453. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1943.tb00338.x

hooks,  bell, 2015. Black looks: race and representation. Routledge, New York.

Skurnick, L. (Ed.), 2020. Pretty bitches: on being called crazy, angry, bossy, frumpy, feisty, and all the other words that are used to undermine women, First edition. ed. Seal, New York.