2019
In Ballet Kink at the Guggenheim, Fernandes tasks dancers with developing a choreography under the restraints of Shibari rope bondage. A bondage master ties dancers with rope into positions that both support and hinder their range of motion and their endurance in poses from Ballet technique. Under these binds the dancers must re-negotiate their agency. As such the performance embodies metaphors for contemporary situations in which we too might find ourselves redefining freedom, movement and solidarity under social and political restraints.
Ballet Kink was staged as part of the Solomon R. Guggenheim’s Young Collector’s Party in April of 2019.
Images courtesy of the Guggenheim Museum.
Photographer, Scott Rudd Events.
Performers, Abigail H. Simon; Allison Walsh; Elina Miettinen; Violetta Komyshan; Nico Brown; Tyler Zydel; Jonatan Lujan; Josep Maria Monreal Vidal; and Mauricio Vera Nuńez.
Rope bondage by Master Ming (Ming Chang) assisted by Vincent Tiley.
DJ’d by Karsten Sollors.