Samira Elagoz (Finland / The Netherlands)
Cock, Cock… Who’s There?
- Sunday Oct 6 / 20:00, Archa Theatre
This young Finish artist with Egyptian roots focuses on men. She does it for a very good reason: she was raped and now she’s transposing this experience to a documentary plane. However personal her work might be, it touches on broader social and political issues such as loneliness in the digital world, the performative quality of real-world situations, and the Me Too campaign.
Cock Cock… Who’s There? isn’t just a performance about rape, the female body, dating forums, feminism, etc. Elagoz takes the audience on an intense personal research trip spanning three continents during which she contacts men through online dating platforms. The audience watches how the men act and react on the first date. The men include a rich art lover as well as a poor alcoholic guitarist, dominant males who believe in the philosophy of “consent and power” as well as young men who stress the importance of the right kissing technique. However, Samira also analyzes herself: how her teenage selfies reveal her tendency to be sexually attractive at that age, her later resistance, her perception of the difference between the freedom of male and female artists, or how she was hurt by the lack of compassion of her friends and the police and how her mother’s and grandmother’s understanding gave her solace. This performance became a worldwide hit and won prestigious awards.
Samira Elagoz is a Finish-Egyptian artist currently based in Amsterdam. She graduated in choreography at Amsterdam University of the Arts and her graduation performances, Craiglist Allstars and Cock, Cock… Who’s There? attracted much attention. Cock, Cock… Who’s There? won the prestigious Prix Jardin d’Europe award at Impulstanz 2017 in Vienna, became a hit at the Edinburgh Fringe where Samira won Total Theater Award for Emerging Talent. The German Tanz magazine nominated her as one of the most promising new talents of 2017. Samira Elagoz combines performance with film and video to create her unique style of docu-fiction.
In English with Czech subtitles
Performance length: 60 min.Written, directed, edited: Samira Elagoz
