A critic would say: Alexandra Bachzetsis’s solo Private: Wear a mask when you talk to me could be considered a sort of “equipment piece,” where what it is to be explored is how everyday behaviors of gender and sexual identity are reproduced. Bringing Trisha Brown’s choreographic tradition into the highly techno-baroque world of global pop culture, Private is an unsolicited report, fifty-three minutes in duration, on how gender and sexual desire are fabricated through the ritualized repetition of bodily gestures within the neoliberal regime.

However, Private does not mobilize techniques of parody that have been developed within feminist and queer cultures during the last years. It doesn’t aim to represent the process of embodiment of gender and sexual norms, but rather it explores the instances of performative failure and inner transition that allow for agency and resistance to emerge.

Concept, Choreography & Performance – Alexandra Bachzetsis
Collaboration, Creation and Movement Research – Thibault Lac
Research Curator – Paul B. Preciado
Communication Design & Photography – Julia Born and Blommers-Schumm
Costume Design – Cosima Gadient
Collaboration Sound – Lies Vanborm
Lighting Design & Technique – Patrik Rimann
Stage Design & Production Assistant – Sotiris Vasiliou
Production – Association All Exclusive
Production Management – Anna Geering
Supported by – Kooperative Förderververeinbarung between: Stadt Zürich, Fachausschuss Tanz und Theater BS/BL, Pro Helvetia-Schweizer Kulturstiftung, GGG Basel und Ernst Göhner Stiftung
Co-Produced with Kaserne Basel, Zürich Tanzt, Art Night with ICA London, Rauschenberg Residency/Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and Tanzhaus Zürich
Co-Commissioned by documenta 14