| Maker | Christian Guerematchi |
| Duration | 45 min |
Experience a free work-in-progress and join the conversation with the creator.
Loved2Death
Radical Embrace
In Open Studio’s, we get a glimpse into Loved2Death (L2D), the new research project by Christian Guerematchi.
In this powerful work-in-progress, he explores the delicate balance between nurturing and suffocating forces within the racial embrace, the embrace between cultures filled with tension, desire, and control. Through text, dance, and video, he unravels the complexities of double consciousness, cultural expectations, and exclusion.
During his residency at MGLC in Ljubljana, Christian drew inspiration from the book On Cuddling, Loved to Death in the Racial Embrace by Phanuel Antwi. From his dual heritage, he found connections to animism, the philosophy that everything possesses a soul, and reflected on how this belief was stripped away from both African and Slavic cultures under colonial influence.
In Loved2Death, Guerematchi weaves together personal and political layers, confronting the audience with questions of power, truth, and identity. It is an inquiry into what happens when everyone shapes their own version of reality.
Christian Guerematchi is a Slovenia-born performer with a background in classical ballet, who now works in contemporary dance. His work is always artivistic and, as a queer person of color, he investigates the boundaries between Black and white, man and woman, East and West, North and South.
Since 2006 he has lived in the Netherlands, where he delves into the complexity, contradictions, and social consequences of identity and (de)colonialism, supported by theatre studies at the University of Amsterdam and training in Somatic Movement Coaching. In 2021 he received a two-year development grant from the Performing Arts Fund NL (Fonds Podiumkunsten). During this period he created the trilogy Epistemologies of the Body in collaboration with ICK Amsterdam, consisting of the solo NAM – Non Aligned Movement, the trio Hissy Fit (Echo Between Bodies), and the group performance FUNK (A Cosmic Horizon). At its heart lies the forgotten history of the Black body and Black European identity.
| Choreography/concept/performance | Christian Guerematchi |
| Creative producer | Jimmy-Pierre de Graaf |
| Coproduction | Stichting Kindvolk |
| Music | Aurélie Nyirabikali Lierman & Julius Eastman |
| Visuals/scenography | Jeisson Drenth |
| Costume | Jacob Kok |
Korzo Studio