Marika Peura: Imperial Stage

Carrot and stick
Blindfolded, with shiny shoes
Well-mannered, tamed and domesticated
A world-class parasite

The performance reflects on the body in the imperial core – the body that upholds the system; the system that grants us material privilege; the privilege that shapes our ideas, desires and ambitions. The choreography dives into the contradictions of the imperialist way of living, made invisible by design. From these tensions, a rich performative gesture emerges – one that melts into the superstructure, greasing the machinery of the status quo from within.

Freedom is a meadow with fences
Clop-clop-clop-clop
A riding horse galloping

The audible silence
A virtuous body
An elevated spine, so straight, limbs prolonged to peripheries
A leech sucking

I scream in the name of solidarity
‘No one is free until everyone is free’
I pat myself on the back
Congratulations!
While I’m trotting along ‘the right side of history’

Monstrosity of the purest barbaric nature
A spineless boat of rotten skins
a moral compass of gold we navigate

Imperial Stage is the second part of a series of works that choreographically reflect on the artist's socio-political position. The first part of the series, the solo work Amalgam Melee, examined questions of Brownness and Whiteness from the perspective of a mixed-Finnish body – one that embodies the mechanisms of white supremacy acting both as a site that exercises power and one that is subjected to it. The work premiered at Zodiak Stage on 5 September 2024.