© 2009-2024
Blood Thirsty
A transdisciplinary performance that explores fantasy and mysticism related to blood, political borders and a sense of connectedness.
How much can a person contain? Working in a laboratory day in and day out. Between glass tubes, vials and refrigerators, organizing blood. While pandemics spread and wars are fought. Disaster approaches from a distance. Strange reflections, desires and visions leak into the regulated routines of a bloodless environment made of seemingly hermetic walls and vessels.
With Blood Thirsty, Ira Melkonyan continues her research into the performativity of liquids from a transnational feminist perspective, venturing into what is probably the most metaphorically loaded bodily fluid. Centering blood and other biological substances as performative agents, this transdisciplinary performance explores fantasy and mysticism surrounding leaking bodies, political borders and a sense of connection.
PROJECT SUMMARY and RESEARCH QUESTIONS
What is the performance of blood?
Who gets to frame it and to assign meaning to it? What are its social and political connotations? What does our understanding of blood say about our times? And how can the agency of blood be re-imagined from a transnational feminist perspective?
Loosely inspired by Jenny Hval’s novel Paradise Rot, the performance project draws its driving force from a desire for emancipation from the scientific-medical establishment. It subverts laboratory aesthetics of blood treatment and aims to create a world of quiet horror and wonder.
Under the mysterious influence of the blood that she is moving and managing in a lab every day, the main protagonist develops a growing obsession and thirst for blood, evoking delirious visions of relentlessly leaking bodies.
Work inProgress Video
On May 29th 2024, "Blood Thirsty" was presented as a work in progress within the framework of the SPRING festival. Together, we are looking for partners who want to contribute towards the premiere in 2025. Contact Ira at ira@rubber-bodies.com for further information.