THIS PERFORMANCE IS POSTPONED TO 2021, DUE TO COVID-19
POLARI SPEAKING SEX
Polari was a secretive language used within gay communities in Britain from the beginning of the 1900s to the late 1960s. The language was based on slang words deriving from a variety of different sources, including; other languages (such as Italian, French and Jiddisch), rhyming slang, and backslang (spelling words backwards).
Polari enabled gay men to talk to each other in front of straight people, in public. It enabled gays to feel part of an exclusive group. This language, being full of camp, innuendo and sarcasm also helped form a resilient worldview in the face of arrest, blackmail and physical violence.
Marcus is inspired by this idea of a secret language as a road to community and safety, but also as a safe space in itself. A secret form of communication as a tool for expressing, sharing and performing queer joy, queer pleasure, queer intimacy and queer eroticism in public.
Marcus work involves movement and text. I his artistic practice he wants to find and/or create connections between the poetic/political body and a poetic/political language. The author of Stone Butch Blues, Leslie Feinstein, once write: Gender is the poetry we make of the language we are taught. In Polari Speaking Sex the movement and the choreography becomes embodied poetry created from the language we learn.
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Choreography: Marcus Baldemar
Created in collaboration with: Viktoria Andersson, Mariana Suikkanen Gomes, Daniel Åkerström Steen, Pyo Soon Caroline Byström and Adam Seid Tahir.
On stage: Marcus Baldemar, Viktoria Andersson, Mariana Suikkanen Gomes
Scenography, costume, mask and light: Daniel Åkerström Steen
Co-production: MDT, Riksteatern, turnénätverket Slingan
Residency: MDT, Riksteatern
Tour: Köttinspektionen, Uppsala: 14 november, 2020. MDT, Stockholm: 15 + 16 april, 2021. Atalante, Göteborg: 20 + 21 april, 2021. Dansstationen, Malmö: 23 + 24 april, 2021