SUNCUT: a lover's Dictionary, Shadow Text, Begin / The Mirror, Poem at Work, Poems and Other Emergencies, PUBLIC RELATIONS, APRIL (a performance), ...as if leaking, Forever in both Directions, This Container, Touch(ed), Soft Reality

But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent.

SUNCUT: a lover's dictionary is a lexicon of 366 gestures that attempts to embody the 366 entries in Lesbian Peoples: Materials for a Dictionary written by Monique Wittig and Sandie Zeig (1979). In an act of speculative reanimation SUN CUT is an anticipatory document remembering a future yet to arrive. The work unfurls word by word, body by body. Each iteration of the performance progresses through the dictionary: gathering bodies, gestures, dances. It resists linguistic fixity in order to embrace language as a site of transformation, refusal, and reinvention. Inverting the status of printed material in archival practices SUN CUT asks how the body can be both a site and means of preservation.

Lesbian Peoples: Material for a Dictionary is a speculative dictionary that dismantles patriarchal language to posit a world of lesbian relation. Through fragmented definitions and poetic inventions, it reframes language as a site of resistance. Its entries range from definitions of everyday terms to elaborate accounts of mythical events, political movements and cultural practices. The book itself is a queer critique of linguistic authority and its role in enforcing dominant ideologies. Wittig and Zeig subvert the dictionary’s normal function, as a tool of mastery and control, and reshape it into a generative field where language destabilises its own conditions of use. Building on these foundations, SUNCUT approaches Lesbian Peoples not simply as a book but as a practice—a framework for reorganising the body through language. 

Concept, Choreography and Performance: Chloe Chignell

Sound Collaborations: Mara Schwerdtfeger (Sydney), Steph Holl-Trieu (Essen), Amina Szecsödy (PAF, St Erme).

This work is supported by: Critical Path Sydney, Artspace Sydney, Dancehouse Melbourne, GC De Maalbeek, n22 Brussels, Kunstendecreet, Cité des arts, Paris. 

This work has been presented at: PACT Zollverein, Essen, Pride Museum, MIMA, Brussels and Summer University, Performing Arts Forum, St Erme, France. 


Photography by Stine Sampers, June 2025. 

 

 

 

upcoming

15.03.26 • performance
SUNCUT: A lover's dictionary, [performance] as part of exhibition: Hell is Other People (If you're lucky) Kunsthalle Münster, DE

recent

25.01.26 • performance
SUNCUT: A lover's dictionary, Critical Path, Sydney
19.01.26 until 24.01.26 • residency
SUNCUT: A lover's Dictionary, Residency, Artspace, Sydney
13.01.26 until 27.01.26 • workshop
Reading Group: Try to remember, or failing that, invent. Reading and writing with Monique Wittig. Critical Path, Sydney
12.01.26 until 30.01.26 • residency
SUNCUT: A lover's Dictionary, Residency, Critical Path, Sydney
05.12.25 • performance
SUNCUT: A lover's dictionary, Atelier no 71, PACT Zollverein, Germany

less recent, still present

17.10.25 until 18.10.25 • 
Shadow Text, Performance, Beursschouwburg, Brussels BE.
25.08.25 until 29.08.25 • workshop
Translating the Biotext, choreographic workshop, Summer Dance Intensive Vilnius, Lithuania
22.08.25 • performance
Shadow Text, performance, Summer University, Performing Arts Forum, France.

past

21.07.25 until 02.08.25 • residency
SUNCUT: a lover's dictionary, Residency at GC De Maalbeek, n22 brussels.
15.06.25 • performance
SUNCUT: a lover's dictionary, Performance, Iteration 1, PRIDE Museum, queer x Mima, Brussels
11.05.25 until 17.05.25 • residency
SUNCUT: a lover's dictionary, development at Performing Arts Forum, France.
11.04.25 until 13.04.25 • performance
Shadow Text, performance, Dancehouse, Melbourne/Naarm, AUS.
05.04.25 until 06.04.25 • performance
Total by Angela Goh, performance, GOMA, Brisbane, AUS.
02.04.25 until 04.04.25 • workshop
Translating the Biotext, choreographic workshop, BFA students, The Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne/Naarm, AUS.
27.03.25 until 29.03.25 • performance
Begin / The Mirror, Performance, Pavillon ADC, Geneva.
22.03.25 • performance
Begin/ The Mirror, Performance, Kunstencentrum BUDA, Kortijk, BE.
20.02.25 until 21.02.25 • reading
I am a Translation, Artist Presentation, Werkplatz typographie, Amsterdam NL
26.01.25 until 01.02.25 • residency
TOTAL by Angela Goh, Residency, Critical Path / Ready Made, Sydney AUS.
13.01.25 until 31.01.25 • residency
SUNCUT : a lover's dictionary, residency at Critical Path, Sydney.
06.01.25 until 10.01.25 • residency
Resonance by James Bachelor, Residency, Canberra Theatre Centre, ACT, AUS.
03.12.24 until 20.12.24 • residency
Resonance by James Bachelor, Residency, Berlin, DE.
28.11.24 until 30.11.24 • performance
Begin / The Mirror [premiere] NEXT festival, Espace Pasolini, Valenciennes, FR