Double Bill: BUST & A mouthful of stones - Première
Line up: Maria Pisiou & Anna Riley-Shepard | Laura Boser

BUST: 4 attempts at rewilding the chest

What stories does a chest carry? Some are visible on the skin or clothes — traces of struggle, transition, affirmation. Others are hidden beneath the ribcage — embodied memories of love, fear, grief, rage.

BUST investigates the femme chest as a contested body zone—shaped by history, intimacy, and power. Drawing on punk’s disruptive energy, the work opens a personal, political, and sensorial archive. The two performers move as explorers through shifting landscapes- from construction and archaeological sites to poetic, wild terrains. Breath, lungs, and heart become the compass for navigating and unfolding these layers.

BUST is a multidisciplinary performance by Anna Riley-Shepard and Maria Pisiou, in collaboration with the punk duo Personbag and visual artist and ceramist Natalia Manta. It blends dance, punk music, and wearable installation. The work brings together practices around the body as archive, rewilding the body, ceramic and metal work, and raw punk sound.
 

Concept, Choreography & Performance: Maria Pisiou & Αnna Riley-Shepard | Composition & Sound Design:  Personbag (Lana Harris & FiFi) | Wearable Sculpture & Set:  Natalia Manta | Dramaturgy: Rodia Vomvolou | Photo  & Video: Jace Kunfermann | Video editing: Maria Pisiou | In co-production with Tanzhaus Basel, CH

With the support of Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Het Cultuurfonds, Tanzhaus Basel, Onassis Foundation, Sky Studio Amsterdam and DansLab Noord.

Special thanks to Fer Gonzalez Morales, Sebastian Zuber, Corinne Eckenstein, Kihako Narisawa, Sofia Garcia Miramon.

Content note: This performance contains loud sound and may be distressing for some audience members.

A mouthful of stones

a work-in-progress by Laura Boser

How can a dancing body move through this brutal and genocidal world? What if inner torment outgrows the body, letting the monstrous inside us take over? What erupts from the mouth when you are unable to speak?

In a dream-like way, a mouthful of stones lingers with questions of how a body absorbs and carries the pain of an exhausted earth. 

What cannot be spoken spills out through breath and trembling flesh. Repetitive movement, wearable sculptures, and live sound fold into one another, forming a shifting choreography between body and material. Dark fabrics constantly transform into different creatures, landscapes, and hybrid organisms, slipping between human and more-than-human states.

Concept, Costume, Performance, Sound: Laura Boser | Special thanks: Jhor van der Horst, Sky Studio Amsterdam | Photos and Teaser: Gergely Ofner

Note: This performance contains loud sound and may be distressing for some audience members.