What are you ashamed of? When did you feel the most vulnerable? What is intimacy to you? What do you see when you look at this body? Is it mine or yours? What does your gaze to the body? What does consent mean to you when silence is the only response? If you could act without consequences, what would you do? What do you feel? Do you feel empathy, or guilt? When does observing become participating? Are you complicit in the systems you criticize? How? What are your limits for vulnerability? Are they the same for others? What makes you uncomfortable right now: the body, the questions, or your own thoughts? When did you last act against injustice, rather than just witnessing it? What is your role in challenging injustice? I lay down and represent not only my story, but that of one in three women worldwide, that experience physical or psychological violence from age 16 (WHO). I lay down to scream that it is the loving father, the cool brother, the best friend, the nice colleague, the loved husband and the handsome boyfriend that rape. LET´S CHAT is an invitation to reflect on one owns behaviour, to ask your neighbour if she is ok, to go out of this performance and open the conversation of complicity to the system with the person next to you, to speak up when something does not seem right, to go out on the streets and demonstrate, to apologize for one´s mistakes, to claim agency, to share secrets and be vulnerable, to get empowered by intimacy, to find communities and to take responsibility for one´s actions and non-actions!

Yesterday I tried my first drag king experience. I wanted to try drag for a while and my beach bitch character is a bit drag queen. Being inspired by friends and collegues around me I was curious to try King. So after readying queer essays and papers for university, I decided that my homework (to reacord a queer-self-portrait video) would be me doing king and going for a walk outside. I watched some youtube videos on how to to drag king make-up and imporovised with the make-up I had available at home. I was surprised how good the make-up worked although it was my first time trying drag. Amino Acid - King of Vitality I borrowed a jeans jacket of my partner and wore the baggiest jeans I have. Headphones and when the moment to go out arrived I got really nervous and anxious. I was afraid of the reactions, I was afraid of violence! I was aware that people will still frame me as a woman, I was aware that eventhough I would embody stereotypical menly behaviour, people wont accept nor respect me. First I did not encounter anyone on the streets. Then I passed some busy persons that did not even look at me. Later people starred at me. Then I passed a group of young women, in their 20s; as soon as I passed they laught and said: "What is this!?" I also encountered a collegue that (pretended?) not to recognise me. The only positive reaction was a girl of colour (in the aerea I live in unfortunately cultural and ethnic diversity is not very common) smiling at me very warmly. Other kids and teens passed me and there was either no or negative comments. Two young men passed by. One did noot see me, the other starred and when they passed me he started to complain about "how disgusting people nowadays are". As a female identifying and labeled person, I usually dress (and rarely) wear feminin make-up. I am constantly aware of the male gaze and potential risky situations. Now the experience of dressing and having make-up like a man (I did not even behave much like one as I was alone and too afraid to get assaulted) made me feel even more vulnerable and definately raised my awareness for marginalised groups and safety issues in an apparently safe city like Vienna! I was left with more questions than answers: Is this already drag king? When does it become so? How safe is this city/aerea? What do people think? How do they label me? Is my fear reasonless? How can I challenge society whilst staying safe? How can I connect marginalised groups? How can education in schools help respectful and non violent societies? How can I contribute?

I don't know you You fascinate me I touch you You are soft I like it when my fingers Caress your inner skin You have a firm stance I don't move you I touch you again My skin caresses your Your inside We are very intimate But I don't speak your language Can I touch you? You stand there so firm Firm in the ground And take in all the sun I watch Your whole body You are small, firm And yet very soft I touch your body You are firm And yet so fragile You are firm And yet so tender I touch you But leave you there Where you are at home I caress you And say goodbye to you again. DE Ich kenn´dich nicht Du faszinierst mich Ich berühre dich Du bist weich Ich mag es, wenn meine Finger Über deine innere Haut streicheln Du hast einen festen Stand Ich bewege dich nicht   Ich berühre dich wieder Meine Haut streichelt über Deine Innere Wir sind sehr intim Aber ich spreche nicht deine Sprache Darf ich dich berühren? Du stehst dort so fest Fest im Boden Und nimmst die ganze Sonne in dich auf Ich beobachte Deinen ganzen Körper Du bist klein, fest Und doch ganz weich   Ich berühre deinen Körper Du bist fest Und doch so zerbrechlich Du bist fest Und doch so zart   Ich berühre dich Aber lasse dich dort Wo du zuhause bist Ich streichle dich Und verabschiede mich wieder von dir.

In the archive of Performance Art I found Deborah Esmeades work "Lucy and the Beast" from 1995, NY. Interpreting and embodying her work made me question bodily restrictions that I am not used to and challenged my insecurity of speaking on stage. During the contextual research I discovered a horrific case of child abuse, where the girl, named Elisa, was killed by her mother just 3 days before Deborah´s performance. The media refered to Elisa´s case as the Cindarella case. I cannot know if Deborah meant to refer to Elisa´s case but in the performance there is a part refering to Cindarella. It combines various tales, self, persona and character, and fictional-historic stories under the structural and thematic umbrella of the Little Mermaid. Dealing with chronic pain since over 1,5 years I feel connected and inspired by the original version of the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen.

Lydia, 56, italian, rich, dyed blond, plastic surgery (boobs, lips, lifing) Loves Raffaella Carrà and calamari fritti. was married twice. No kids, had a dog once, now loves cats. Can predict the future and read minds. Lydia was born in a small town in the south of Italiy in 1986 and married her first love when she was 19 years old. They were married 10 years before they got divorced and Lydia was left with a great amount of money. She bought a house in Milan and got married and divorced again within 2 years. She has a passion for fashion and beauty and she counts 240K followers on instagram.

I embody a female, white skinned, avarage hight body, multiple herniated disks, brown hair. As a performing artist this is a fact that I ALWAYS have to consider as it delivers a message that needs to be consciously presented. I believe it is impossible NOT to make the performing body, part of the content of the art work. Performing is communicating. As the first Axiom of Paul Watzlawick says "one cannot not communicate" I therefore am convinced that one cannot not perform. The Performativity as Judtih Butler refers to the gender as social constructs, identity representation and beauty standards one is exposed to. The decision on how I as a performer handle those themes can be enforcing or confronting, but I will always have some kind of treatment of the body in relation to the social ideas and therefore of the political in performance. All bodies are political and so all performances are inherently political aswell. The body not only is flesh and bones, as a physical container but also holds emotions, experiences and the memories that add up to the identity presented and percieved by the other(s). The beauty industry uses the insecurities of how (especially older) women should behave and look like. The manipulation of stereotypical beauty to create the urge to buy and enforce capitalism is just another shade of the battle that I fight (on and off stage) against patriarchy. (read: Now it's official: the entire beauty industry is built on the peddling of pernicious nonsense | Sam Leith | The Guardian ) In my performances I question beauty, the body I live with and what that means on a personal and social level. I am young, but also I have multiple herniated disks, chonic pain, I survived sexual violence and my case was dropped, as many others. All these experiences add up not only to the person and the body I perform but also influence the topics and views that I show in my performances. All bodies are political and so all performances are inherently political aswell.