Performance

Because our bodies remain political and we are being deprived of control over their own bodies, WE.LO(U)VE.RADIO felt it was important for living, dancing bodies to give shape to this performance—bodies that are free, vibrant, and carry the voices of women speaking in English, French, and Spanish.

This site-specific creation was designed as a public intervention to sensitively engage passersby while informing them. Nine dancers, equipped with portable speakers, become the mouthpieces and spokespersons for many women in a performative and poetic space-time. Intimate testimonies, echoes from the past, political speeches, statistics, and observations—these diverse voices are necessary to prompt reflection and to better understand the importance of legalizing abortion.

Together, the performers create a fleeting stage where taboos can fall, and thoughts can be set into action, where bodies express in words and gestures the moments experienced by thousands of women who have abortions daily.

The first two public performances (each lasting 25 minutes) took place on September 22 inside La Bourse, the nerve center of the European capital. A large crowd gathered around the performers to watch, listen, and hear these bodies animated by a constellation of voices sharing sensations, determinations, struggles, breaths, hesitations, fears, pain, and joy.

We could see on the faces of the audience a genuine interest, curiosity, and hunger to hear more—a palpable need to free a long-silenced discourse. We left this experience convinced of the necessity and urgency of performing this creation again in other contexts and realities. We are convinced that our artistic proposal, in this subtle and sensitive form, can have a real impact on each individual by touching their hearts, and we believe that this is how we can slowly influence the political and societal aspects of tomorrow.