Naked on Stage

Nabil Mohammad 

A Syrian journalist and critic. He has been a reporter, editor, and critic for several Arab media outlets. He has lived in Canada since 2022 and published his novel “Freshmen Training” in Italy in 2020.

The TransAmériques Festival, one of North America’s most diverse theatre and dance festivals, recently concluded in Montreal. The festival hosts contemporary troupes from different countries experimenting with modern tools and breaking patterns. Its focus is on the body as the foundation of performance, the body leads all other elements, and it showcases various global perspectives, most of which also centre on the body. 

There were twenty performances, traditional dances but also performances that featured the spoken word. Many shows featured performers beginning in ordinary clothing and ending the performance naked. With their bodies they conveyed various meanings, connotations, and messages. Some bodies expressed pure desire, some sought freedom from norms, some aimed for liberation from discrimination.

In the French performance A Black Card Named Desire, eight black women explored stereotypes, identity issues, and societal questions over two hours and forty minutes. They took pride in their skin colour at times – and tried to wash it off with soap at others – a striking visual contrast with white lighting on a white stage. Their bodies narrated the experience of having black skin: attacking and approaching the audience (even taking wallets) in a chaotic climax that demanded interaction from the audience and subtly punished them.

The show selected bodies carefully, creating a comprehensive map of the Black female body. As if to represent each body type on stage, from heavier to slimmer bodies. Some have long, curly hair, others have braids that reach up to touch the theatre’s ceiling. This physically restricted their bodies throughout the performance, another powerful metaphor.

Another show, Weathering from the United States, used the movement of a small white square to tell a story of nature and life. Ten bodies trapped inside it merge to avoid falling out of the narrow space of life remaining. The performance begins with rigid, motionless figures in everyday attire of various colours and sizes, ending in a chaotic frenzy of nudity and rapid spinning on the ground. The terrifying chaos stirs the audience, fearful of objects or even bodies flying towards them. It is a meticulous work that employs complete stillness and extreme movement, clothing and nudity, and love and hate, to create a pleasure that needs no words. The level of connection with the audience shifts from cold formality, where the technical crew had to spray the audience with water mist to alleviate their sweating while looking at statuesque bodies for over 15 minutes, to a warm relationship with them involving sweaty bodies moving among the audience and sitting in their laps.

In a large open space in Montreal, one hundred (mostly amateur) performers, led by Uruguayan Tamara Cubas, moved to rhythmic music, testing every human behaviour and emotion sequentially. Alternately organised and chaotic, they ran, walked, danced, and expressed birth, death, sex, hatred, love, happiness, and sadness with their bodies alone. The bodies were free to express themselves with and without clothes, even in the rain, which challenged not only the performers but also the audience to stay despite getting wet. Ultimately it kept them engaged.

A show from Ivory Coast called We Are Truly Born featured a group of transgender individuals seducing each other and the audience, returning to the natural life that should be ordinary. Humorous movements and attempts to attract the audience to interact are connected with disorganised scenes, soliciting them to enjoy without need for explanation.

A common theme among the festival performances is experimentation with different tools in various contexts, breaking language barriers, and opening relationships with the audience on multiple levels. Some shows involved direct conflict with the audience, challenging their emotions, thoughts, and values. Performers relaxed their naked bodies amongst audience members, while others indirectly expelled those who could not handle the direct and shocking experience. In the Portuguese show Catarina and the Beauty Kof killing Fascists a character delivered a harsh, right-wing populist speech for over 20 minutes, provoking extreme anger and causing dozens to leave the show, while some shows prompted objects to be hurled at the stage.

One festival organiser asked during a presentation, “How can you speak about the world with your body?” This question was central to the 15 day festival. Performances showed that the body can do more than dance in order to accurately convey any human or political message in fewer words, with broader meanings. The body’s languages include skin colour, gender identity, hair, hands, and every visible part, with or without clothes, creating a different relationship with the audience, deepening interaction. When the body strains to convey its message, its scent wafts closer to the noses of the audience.

Jesse Mill, the co-artistic director of TransAmériques, told Henna Platform that the festival has always been a space for diverse physical performances, driven by a strong desire to attract varied and different performances with unique tools. According to Mill, these shows often make a difference.

There is always a message and a purpose behind these shows. For example, providing a large stage like the Monument National in Montreal to a troupe of African and Brazilian transgender individuals is based on a message, and carries the idea and goal of bringing this type of performance from small, dark rooms into the open before a larger audience. The major shows at the festival are those that address issues faced by coloured women or transgender individuals, platforming a stance and a message above everything else.

The festival always aims to achieve a different level of communication with the audience, through performances that involve and provoke interaction. However, the relationship with the audience is not something planned, but rather observed during the shows. “We watched what happened with the audience with joy,” Mill said.

In the streets and open spaces, for the passersby who did not plan to attend a theatrical show, and in large halls equipped with the latest technology, the bodies of dozens of artists from different countries defended justice, love, and freedom; particularly and especially the freedom of art and expression.