LIBERATING: She Dances (LIVESTREAMING)

Trained to dance in chains, a body forgets how to move once unshackled.

LIBERATING: She Dances (in Chains) is a visceral physical theatre work about discipline, masking and the paradox of agency within constraint. Through chains, masks, movement and multilingual text, the piece moves through the roles a woman is taught to inhabit: daughter, student, friend, citizen, worker, lover, mother and more.

It sketches a world of internalised surveillance and self-regulation, where external command slides into voluntary compliance, social scripts become muscle memory, and performance hardens into habit. With chains, masks and the body as its image field, the work asks: when conduct is measured from within, what might freedom be?

She dances in chains. She chooses to. At least she thinks so.

Age recommendation: 16+

Duration: 50 minutes

Price: £12

Languages: Cantonese, English, Mandarin

Countries: China, Chile, Poland, UK

Show accessibility: None

Content warnings: Contains chains, masks, physical restraint, intense movement, swearing, themes of gendered control, self-surveillance, and emotional distress.

Cast & Creatives

Created, Produced and Performed by Xiaoyao Luo

The Cast
SHE: Xiaoyao Luo
THEM: Kuba Pawełczak & Wenqi Yu

Movement Director: Rebeca Pereira
Original Music: Wenshan Yu
Sound Designer: Lois Qi
Lighting Designer: Melody Mengyun Liu
Visual Designer: Chaoying Lin
Assistant Producer: Inini Xinyi Yin
Marketing & Photographer: Ruidi Zhu
Film & Videographer: Dana Peiyi Wang

More info

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