bestiaire | Nefeli Asteriou

Asteriou’s “bestiaire” is a “teratology” on stage, a metaphorical and, at the same time, transformative index of monster-like images and movements.

The woman-spider, the dancer-swan, the sylph, the gazelle or the mare, the bitch (familiar to all) present themselves before us or appear momentarily and vanish. Symbols, dance references, furious yet brooding figures, compose a signification system that both enhances and confounds any attempt towards definition.

Drawing inspiration from the classic and cliché animal metaphors attributed to the females of our species, “bestiaire” re-phrases the question of identity in an era where change is the only constant.

The work approaches femininity and masculinity with a caustic spirit, all the while referring to various kinetic practices. It seeks their resonance within the expressiveness of the body, representing them and attempting to appropriate them or obscure their meaning. By setting the gaze on failed definitions of what is at stake, the artist confronts herself with a forged archive of dance materials and contemplates whether anything belongs to her after all. Accepting the fluidity in the conception and reception of the event as it unfolds on stage, she confronts the body with the need and fear of being visible, while claiming its right to continuously generate its identity.

In “bestiaire,” the (dancing) body is approached as an irreducible complexity, as a space of folds and ruptures, as an “I” that reflects the “You.”

• Bestiaires are illustrated collections – mostly known from the Middle Ages – that describe real and imaginary animals, endowing them with a certain meaning or symbolism.
• A major reference for the research of the work was the textbook Femmes animales: Bestiaire métaphorique” by Laure Belhassen, in which the author collects 55 metaphors used to attribute certain animal traits to the female sex, while complementing them with short, witty comments.
• The creator was further inspired by the book “I am the monster who speaks to you” by philosopher and art curator Paul B. Preciado, in which the writer scathes the binary gender spectrum as traditionally defined by psychiatry, with the latter viewing anything outside of it as abnormal and therefore monstrous. The book is translated in Greek by Anastasia Melia Eleftheriou and published by Antipodes Publications (2022).
• This is not the first time that Nefeli Asteriou participates in the Festival of New Choreographers of Onassis Stegi. Previously, she has appeared as a co-creator and performer in the digital work “besuch” presented in 2021, while in 2020 she has appeared as a performer in the work “DisJoint” by Anastasia Valsamaki.