Main Character is a movement-based performance that explores the performativity of the body in public space, shaped by social norms. The performance invites us to step in the shoes of different characters who wander around in the city, creating a play of short snippets from entire lifetimes, fusing reality with a fictional construct. By bringing mundane behavioral patterns from the streets on stage and adding a touch of performative elements, the performance challenges the borders between pretence, acting and reality. This performing reality leaves us wondering what our body language tells us in terms of social norms and individual expression and how it serves as a tool to express emotions, relationships and power dynamics in the body’s movements. Main Character zooms in to the gestures of passers by, turning them into epic stories, where every individual is the central character of their complex lives.
Concept and direction: Biret Haarla Pieski
Performers: Marta Marja Ruszkowska, Therese Bendjus
Sound design and composition: Hayden Dean
Photography: Laoura Tsiati
With the support of: Culture Moves Europe – EU Mobility Support
Residency blog posts
October 22, 2024
Main Character
Main Character is a movement-based performance that explores the performativity of the body in public space, shaped by social norms. The performance invites us to step in the shoes of different characters who wander around in the city, creating a play of short snippets from entire lifetimes, fusing reality with a fictional construct. By bringing mundane behavioral patterns from the streets on stage and adding a touch of performative elements, the performance challenges the borders between pretence, acting and reality. This performing reality leaves us wondering what our body language tells us in terms of social norms and individual expression and how it serves as a tool to express emotions, relationships and power dynamics in the body’s movements. Main Character zooms in to the gestures of passers by, turning them into epic stories, where every individual is the central character of their complex lives.
Concept and direction: Biret Haarla Pieski
Performers: Marta Marja Ruszkowska, Therese Bendjus
Sound design and composition: Hayden Dean
Photography: Laoura Tsiati
With the support of: Culture Moves Europe – EU Mobility Support
Biret Haarla Pieski is a dancer and performing artist from Ohcejohka, the Finnish side of Sápmi. She got her Bachelor in Dance Diploma at P.A.R.T.S in Brussels. Her work with Gáddjá Haarla Pieski Starting from Staring – Čalmmiid Čađa premiered in Beursschouwburg in the frame of Art & Land – EU Sámi week, Brussels 2022. She has collaborated with author Niillas Holmberg, composer Jakop Janssønn and Gáddjá Haarla Pieski on a performance-concert Juovssaheaddi – The Rematriator in Bodø – The European Capital of Culture 2024; with theatre director Pauliina Feodoroff on a performance Matriarchy in The Sámi Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2022; with visual artist Outi Pieski on a video installation Guhte Gullá / Here to Hear, Helsinki Biennale 2021 and with visual artist Marja Helander on an award winning short film Eatnanvuloš Lottit / Birds in the Earth, Sundance Film Festival 2018. She was nominated the Young Artists of the Year 2021 by Riddu Riđđu festival.
Hayden Dean is a British-Irish artist and sound practitioner based between Berlin and Helsinki. With a background in Sound Studies and Sonic Arts from the University of the Arts Berlin, Hayden’s work explores how we absorb information and internalise messages from our surroundings. Their practice centers on creating theatrical sound performances that blend spoken word with carefully staged visual elements. Across installations, mixed media sound pieces, and live performances, Hayden’s work delves into themes like media influence, attention and perception, often investigating both audible and suggested sound.
Marta Marja Ruszkowska, born and raised in Polska, based in Berlin. dancer, performer, dance maker. alumna of Inter-University Center for Dance Berlin (HZT). holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes scholarship in the field of dance (2021-2023). co-founder and member of the drag king boys band Hot Compost.
~ universal basic income is beautiful and good! ~
Therese Bendjus is a performance maker and dancer originally from Dresden, Germany. After having traded her medical studies for an education in dance, she graduated from the BA Dance, Context, Choreography at HZT Berlin and was a fellow of Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. In her works she challenges the measurable/diagnosable in order to access spaces of uncertainty and vagueness – building multi-sensorial spaces, that encourage people to be vulnerable, intimate and brave with one another and themselves.As performer she worked a.o. with choreographers and theatre directors such as Constanza Macras, Kirill Savchenkov, Magdalena Weniger, Asya Ashman and Rollando Villazon.