Today was a day filled with performance. Today was the day.
Today was the day of our performances in SPOT Festival.
SPOT Festival is a festival of solo performing arts organised by Nela Antonović of Mimart Teatar.
In conjunction with The Complete Freedom of Truth the theme was: TRUTH.
The SPOT Festival kicked off today at 6pm.
There were around 16 different participants and apparently around 60 audience members.
I would have guessed more around the 40 mark. But sometimes it's hard to judge these things.
We had participants from the UK, Teatar Mimart, the dance institute and a few local performers. It was a great evening of performances that enabled us to see what other people were doing in the arts, and what people in the arts in Serbia were up to.
SPOT Festival is a great opportunity to showcase new work to other artists who are creating new work and I'm grateful that I was able to be a part of this years festival!
Today, I performed naked.
Even writing it down feels like a taboo...
I guess because I know some people back at home will read this... and then imagine me naked...
And well, it's not exactly the done thing. You know, people don't really want to see that...
The fat body is a taboo. It's my taboo & today, I owned it.
The people of Belgrade are very accepting, open minded and kind.
I wonder how differently my performance would have gone if I had performed this short performance back at home... Maybe there wouldn't be a difference at all? But I feel like the people back in England might have been a little bit more apprehensive. Maybe not. Who knows? Not me.
All the performances today at SPOT Festival were based around the theme TRUTH.
And today I performed my truth. The truth of my body and a small glimpse of my mindset as a fat human.
My last performance project was about being fat and funny, and well I guess I haven't finished exploring this part of my identity yet. Mimart Teatar, the organisers of SPOT Festival, are a non-verbal dance company - therefore my performance challenge was to to not use words at all during my 5 minute performance. Trying to use movement to display emotion is something I'm not entirely used to, so it was a nice challenge.
SPOT Festival is a part of a larger festival called: Festival Na sopstveni pogon.
Which translates to: Festival under it's own power. It's run by The Association of Independent Cultural Scene of Serbia and is a month long. The Kondenz Festival is also a part of this larger festival. It's aim is to "improve the visibility of independent culture and highlight its important role in the local community through the support of artistic and cultural projects". This year is happening across three different towns: Belgrade, Zrenjanin and Smederevo.
Overall I think my performance was well received. The audience weren't scared of my body, they were open and mostly all smiling. They weren't overtly repulsed and they just accepted my body for what is was. Most of the audience were all very slim, slender and strong dancers and it was nice to see them accept me for who and what I am.
So thank you.