Bloody Grace!
solo performance - 2027
 
Bloody Grace! combines choreography and text to critically revisit the Annunciation, the biblical scene in which the archangel Gabriel Announces to Mary her virgin pregnancy and chosen role as the mother of God/Jesus. Framed around Mary as a virgin and obedient vessel for God’s will, the Annunciation can legitimize patriarchal control over bodies and lives while repressing sexuality. I propose a rewriting that transforms this motif long mobilized in support of religious and political conservatism into a lever for emancipation.
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Annunciation iconography caught my fascination after I had an abortion. The figures within it unexpectedly echoed my experience: a pregnant person experiencing an irreversible moment, a helper, and a spirit seeking embodiment. In search of meaning, I found details in narrative and iconographic representations—lines of flight that allow us to see the biblical story as a surprising mirror of contemporary experience: Mary becomes pregnant alone, her explicit “yes” invites reflection on consent, and Gabriel often appears as an ambiguously gendered figure.
 
A four-part dramaturgy—Mary, Gabriel, Spirit, and Lily—decentres Mary to foreground a plurality of voices and readings. Drawing on pagan myths that may have shaped the story, I re-imagine the Annunciation in a way that restores sensual and erotic dimensions while challenging gender essentialism and reproductive norms. At the same time, I delve into my own body and senses to approach the scene as a critical moment in which time stretches and something irrevocable happens.