Mermainia: Tales of Tentacularity
Live Performance
17:00 15 June (UK Time)
Please see the documentation below
Mermainia: Tales of Tentacularity (the tentacles of COVID Capitalism) a work in progress… is a live performance on multiple platforms layered with pre-recorded fragments. Zoë’s intimate performances play with the voice, activating soundscapes of desire and vulnerability investigating the mythologies of witches and mermaids and their resonance within contemporary culture.
The mermaid is etched into our memories through Disney’s The Little Mermaid, where Ariel and Ursula encapsulate extremities of gendered identities, in which Ursula the sea witch is the embodiment of Divine, the Queen of all drag queens. A queer Icon and feminist anti-hero in animated form, Ursula’s tentacles take up space, they push at the boundaries of gender and sexuality. Her tentacles become a metaphor for Donna Haraway’s understanding of tentacular thinking and the importance of an intersectional perspective. In her book Staying with the Trouble (2016), tentacularity is a way of articulating and encouraging biological and political symbiosis in the current COVID-19 crisis. Ursula’s tentacles expand and contract inviting us to embrace other ways of being in the world.
*Please note that this performance contains swearing.