Side Step 2019 | Mette Ingvartsen: 21 pornographies

In 21 Pornographies Mette Ingvartsen starts with the idea of pornography, the mechanisms of which permeate the economy, entertainment, the news cycle and warfare. Ingvartsen focuses our gaze on how pleasure and cruelty intertwine, while simultaneously highlighting the connections between power, violence, sexual desire and passion. The exaggeration, repetition and taboos are also what make pornography absurd, and release its sometimes comic and emancipatory potential.

21 Pornographies is a speculative choreography created using language. Ingvartsen's narrator describes and paints elaborate, detailed fantasies, assumes physical positions as part of them, demonstrates them, becomes integrated in them, opposes them and distances herself from them again. Through alliance of words and organic sensitivity, the audience is given an opportunity for fantasies that are no longer controlled by the performer. Images of desire are constructed in a transparent way while simultaneously playing with their manipulative power.

The performance is part of Ingvartsen's series of works where she explores unresolved issues relating to nudity, sexuality and the borderline between the public and the private sphere. The previous instalments of the series were 69 Positions (2014) and the ensemble piece 7 Pleasures (2015).

www.metteingvartsen.net