In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pygmalion, the sculptor who is convinced that women are evil, prefers Galatea, his own creation that Aphrodite, the goddess of love, brings to life. Pol Pi’s piece draws from this narcissistic passion for a female artefact to convey its symbolic violence. Pi, a trans artist, displays a gender-neutral body  who slowly turns into a fake female form made of fruity prosthetics. Between grotesque humor and remarkably subtle suggestions, his moving tableaux borrow from classical images of the myth and iconic figures of  feminist activism. His reading of the Pygmalion story is even more meaningful and eloquently charged because it was created at the end of 2018, at the time of the election of notorious misogynist Jair Bolsonarowho openly despises artists, indigenous populations and the LGBTQ+ community. With this additional political dimension, along with the allegory of art and male domination, the performance sheds new light on the ways female bodies are formatted by patriarchal diktats.

Source: programme of the CND

Pol Pi is a Brazilian trans choreographer who has been living in France  since 2013. Pol worked as a musician for over 10 years and he’s  interested in a broader understanding of dance, working on memory and  temporality, language and translation, and the notions of archive in  dance, with special interest for in situ work. In 2017, he founded the  NO DRAMA company and created the solo pieces ECCE (H)OMO (2017),  ALEXANDRE (2018), Me Too, Galatée (2018), LÀ (2019), Schönheit ist  Nebensache (2021), le trio daté·e·s (2020) and IN YOUR HEAD with the  Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop, which premiered in the Montpellier Danse  festival in 2022.

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).