Pol Pi

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pygmalion, the sculptor who is convinced that women are evil, prefers Galatea, his own creation that Aphrodite, the goddess of love, brings to life. Pol Pi’s piece draws from this narcissistic passion for a female artefact to convey its symbolic violence. Pi, a trans artist, displays a gender-neutral body who slowly turns into a fake female form made of fruity prosthetics. Between grotesque humor and remarkably subtle suggestions, his moving tableaux borrow from classical images of the myth and iconic figures of feminist activism. His reading of the Pygmalion story is even more meaningful and eloquently charged because it was created at the end of 2018, at the time of the election of notorious misogynist Jair Bolsonaro who openly despises artists, indigenous populations and the LGBTQ+ community. With this additional political dimension, along with the allegory of art and male domination, the performance sheds new light on the ways female bodies are formatted by patriarchal diktats.

Pol Pi is a Brazilian trans choreographer who has been living in France since 2013. Pol worked as a musician for over 10 years and he’s interested in a broader understanding of dance, working on memory and temporality, language and translation, and the notions of archive in dance, with special interest for in situ work. In 2017, he founded the NO DRAMA company and created the solo pieces ECCE (H)OMO (2017), ALEXANDRE (2018), Me Too, Galatée (2018), LÀ (2019), Schönheit ist Nebensache (2021), le trio daté·e·s (2020) and IN YOUR HEAD with the Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, which premiered in the Montpellier Danse festival in 2022.