WORK BODY

Work Body is inspired by the poem "Le ceneri di Gramsci" (The Ashes of Gramsci), which Pier Pasolini dedicated to Antonio Gramsci, the co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, who was also physically disabled.

By Michael Turinsky

Work Body is inspired by the poem "Le ceneri di Gramsci" (The Ashes of Gramsci), which Pier Pasolini dedicated to Antonio Gramsci, the co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, who was also physically disabled. Turinsky uses Pasolini's sensual-intellectual homage to the Marxist thinker to find an answer in Work Body to the general shift to the right in the working-class milieu, which is permeated by fantasies of masculinity.

Gramsci always emphasized the "authentic core", the "buon senso" in the proletarian experience. What about the dormant longing to be autonomous and to associate with one's own kind? What about the erotic, but also narcissistic undertones of comradeship and brotherhood? And how does communist desire relate to sexual desire?

Building, singing, speaking, dancing, transgressing the capitalistically organized division of labour, Turinsky not only subverts the separation of mental and manual labour, but also the boundaries between choreographic intervention, concert and political agitation. Work Body creates a space for resonances between the "disabled" and "working" body. Turinsky thus shifts the physicalities pushed to the margins of representation to the center of our attention.

IDEA/CHOREOGRAPHY/TEXT/PERFORMANCE: Michael Turinsky
MUSIC/LYRICS/PERFORMANCE: Tian Rotteveel
SPACE/DESIGN: Jenny Schleif
LIGHT DESIGN: Max Rux
DRAMATURGICAL CONSULTING: Chris Standfest
ARTIFICIAL COLLABORATION: Liv Schellander
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Anna Gräsel

A production by Verein für philosophische Praxis. Co-produced by Tanzquartier Wien, Theater RAMPE Stuttgart. With the support of the Cultural Department of the City of Vienna and the Federal Ministry of Arts, Culture, Civil Service and Sport.

In English spoken language, with German surtitles.

On April 30th with audio description.