Femina transforms femininity into a thrilling, almost primal force
It is so liberating sometimes to witness a performance that refuses to explain itself. Femina, the creation of Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser, does not ask its audience to define femininity, question its ownership or contemplate its boundaries. Instead, it invites us to experience its sheer exhilaration.
The title itself is revealing. The Latin femina means ‘woman’, yet here it seems to evoke something beyond a biological or social definition: a feminine spirit, an energy that transcends gender and binds together contemporary dance, club culture and the spectacular vocabulary of voguing.
The hour-long performance happens over 5 scenes, each exploring a different manifestation of this energy. The opening is mesmerising in its precision and kind of gravity. Six dancers trace intricate geometric patterns through their arms and bodies, as though following invisible mathematical lines. Their movements appear almost two-dimensional, beautifully controlled and angular, occasionally interrupted by unexpected embraces between two performers. These fleeting moments of tenderness offer a fascinating contrast to the choreography’s rigorous structure.
Then, almost without warning, restraint gives way to abandon. What follows is a trance-like explosion of movement, propelled by an insistent electronic soundtrack. Particularly astonishing is the choreography involving the dancers’ hair. Rarely has hair itself seemed so integral to a dance performance, becoming not merely an extension of the body but almost its focal point. Heads whip, hair flies and the movement develops an extraordinary momentum. The transition from the opening’s dark, structured costumes to loose hair give a sense of liberation.
Femina is not only an exercise in physical excess. There are moments of intimacy, with dancers coming together in gestures suggesting the tenderness and vulnerability of romantic relationships.
The performance then ventures into more symbolic territory, evoking goddess-like figures, womb imagery and the almost sacred power of creation. From there, femininity embraces its more playful, theatrical manifestations: high heels and handbags, as metaphors for glamour and high fashion. Nothing feels trivial or apologetic. Vanity itself becomes a form of expression, a joyful assertion of identity.
Joshie Harriette’s lighting design deserves particular praise. It is more than illumination. It becomes an essential part of the stage design, with moving columns of light seemingly dancing alongside the performers. The soundtrack, featuring Floating Points, Ela Minus and Stella Mozgawa, is equally compelling. Its pulsating club rhythms occasionally seem to reach towards something more primordial, suggesting an ancient, instinctive energy beneath the contemporary spectacle.
The audience, too, becomes part of the experience. Spontaneous shouts of how encouragement punctuate the performance, reminding of the participatory atmosphere of ballroom culture, where admiration is expressed openly.
Femina does not need to deliver a thesis on femininity. Its achievement is something far more visceral: it celebrates femininity as an exuberant, contradictory, tender, extravagant and gloriously uncontainable force. And it feels like a real thrill to witness it.