Batty Bwoy reclaims a homophobic slur in a powerful solo exploring the Black queer body, desire, resistance, and transformation.
Doors 18:00 ● On stage 19:00 ● 75 min ● ENG
Batty Bwoy is a solo that doesn’t start with a question or critique, but from a place of play and desire, entangled in violence and charming cruelty. Through a reappropriation of the Jamaican term “Batty Bwoy” (literally, butt boy), a queer slur, Beharie conjures a hybrid creature on the threshold of vulnerability, liberation and monstrous joy. The piece scrutinizes the absurdity of queer monstrosity by letting bodies and languages swallow and regurgitate the corporal fictions projected onto them. Twisting myths and sedimented narratives of the Black queer body, Batty Bwoy unfolds in a droning prog-rock odyssey inspired by feelings, fantasies, and stereotypes, giallo cinema, homophobic dancehall lyrics, and the resilience of “gully queens” and queer voices from Norway and Jamaica. A work that doesn’t explain – but transforms, haunts and empowers.
Harald Beharie (he/they) is a Norwegian-Jamaican choreographer and performer based in Oslo. Their work explores queer embodiment through disorientation, sincerity and playful resistance. With a focus on local collaboration and affective intensity, Beharie creates performances that move between collapse and exuberance. Batty Bwoy received the 2023 Hedda Award for Best Dance Production.
Choreography and performance: Harald Beharie
Artistic collaboration/sculpture: Karoline Bakken Lund and Veronica Bruce
Music: Ring van Möbius
Sound design: Jassem Hindi
Outside eye: Hooman Sharifi, Inés Belli
Producer: Kristina Melbø Valvik
Distribution: Damien Valette
Thanks to: Tobias Leira, Ingeborg Staxrud Olerud, Torbjørn Kolbeinsen and Phillip McLeod
Supported by: Arts Council Norway, Fund for Sound and Image, FFUK, Sandnes Municipality, Oslo Municipality and TOU
→ haraldbeharie.com
Presented in collaboration with Skånes konstförening as part of the series Beautiful Experiments curated by Tawanda Appiah.
Supported by Öppna Malmö, Malmö City.
Beautiful Experiments is a series of meditations by artists and art practitioners. It unravels form, unbuttons language, and embraces process as its central methodology. Resisting expectation, it turns towards the radical possibilities of imagination—towards ways of living and creating the ‘otherwise’.
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