They say that everything must be remade. They say they have come here to do just that. They say they must start again from the beginning. They say that every word must be screened. They say our bodies are made up of language. They say our bodies are historical artifacts. They say our bodies are collective inventions. They say our bodies hold epic stories. 
 
Shadow Text is a choreographic translation of Les Guérillères, a feminist epic novel written by Monique Wittig (1971). Les Guérillières takes as its plot a violent and erotic revolution. Circular in form, it is a three part epic following the transition out of a hetero-patriachial culture and into the formation of a new semiotic order of lesbian relationality. Through sound, text, and movement Shadow Text explodes the epic novel, creating an immersive performance where bodily grammar cracks open the text letting words act themselves out upon and within the bodies of the audience. No longer is it possible to find any neat distinction between body and word. No longer can we start by saying ‘I’. No longer can we say that everything inside of us is ours. Shadow Text exists within the fissure, under the sign of the O, and in the company of feminist mythologies, lesbian erotics, the practice of revolution, materialist poetics and reparative destruction.   

Shadow Text takes on Wittig’s aesthetic-political project, which can be characterized through three beliefs—First, that all political revolution must start with language; Second, that poetics are the location where change can manifest itself on and between our bodies; And third, that language is the means of political resistance and creativity that we all have access to. Shadow Text emerges from a radical lesbian feminist politics and under the infamous declaration made by Monique Wittig “lesbians are not women”. Rather than claiming a certain form of womanhood as many of her second wave contemporaries did, Wittig took another approach, championing the way for queer studies and for a post-gender world. Shadow Text emancipates Les Guérillères from the page bringing it back to the flesh in all its grit, sweat and beauty.  
 
Concept, performance, choreography: Chloe Chignell and Amina Szecsödy
Sound: Amina Szecsödy
Text: Chloe Chignell 
Light design: Leticia Skrycky
Conversation: Simon Asencio

 
Shadow Text has been supported by: 
The Vlaamse Gemeenschapcommissie, WorkspaceBrussels, Cité Internationale des Arts Paris, Kunstencentrum BUDA Kortrijk, KAAP Brugges and rile* books Brussels.