Lymph Blood Story 9424

Glossectomy comes from Greek: glôssa, the tongue, and ektomein, to cut, meaning to cut out the tongue, an operation Julie Botet underwent at the age of four following the proliferation of a rare congenital malformation of the tongue. Lymph Blood Story 9424 takes this intimate story as its starting point, this unexpected overflow of lymph and blood, which disrupted and reshaped the artist's relationship to language, to words, and to her voice. The solo — dance, theatre and photography — takes the form of an autobiographical freak show.

By appropriating and diverting the codes and staging of exhibition, the choreographer questions the nature of the reception of freak shows, poised between fascination and pity, between desire and disgust. Highlighting the paradox of a form that displays monsters while also making the outside-the-norm existent and visible, the piece takes up the question of the normativity of faces and the complex feeling of being the monster, somewhere between sideshow attraction and textbook case.

Artistic concept, choreography and performance Julie Botet

Writing Elsa Eskenazi & Pauline Fontaine