Hate me, Tender_ Revisited

In her award-winning solo performance, choreographer and director Teresa Vittucci encounters one of the most important and formative female figures of Judeo-Christian societies: the Virgin Mary. Full of humor and with great curiosity, Vittucci unravels the queer potential of this icon, who embodies the compassionate woman and grieving mother and is culturally considered the epitome of purity, innocence, and perfection. In her piece, Vittucci embarks on a crusade of vulnerability to rehabilitate Mary the matriarch as a powerful heroine and ambassador of queer feminism.

An examination of the Virgin Mary must necessarily begin-as it is in the name-by first deconstructing her virginity. Before looking at Mary as a human being and a personality with touching qualities such as her vulnerability, mercy, and love-which ultimately contain the feminist and agitational moment of an ideal social contract-it is necessary to question this greatest of all attributions: her supposedly intact body.

Teresa Vittucci investigates the hymen: also known as the hymen, it is the symbol of chastity and reserve, which is supposed to preserve and prove the same. Hate me, Tender exposes: The hymen is a regulatory construct that has a frighteningly broadly supported validity in the discourse of female sexuality. Vittucci's performance will overthrow this notion.

The solo, winner of the Swiss Dance Award and the PREMIO Young Artist Award, has been seen at numerous festivals and theaters across Europe since 2019 and is the first part of Teresa Vittucci's trilogy in praise of vulnerability . After the duet Doom created in 2021, the third and final part of the trilogy will premiere at Tanzhaus Zürich in March 2024. At the Deutsches Theater Berlin, Teresa Vittucci will re-examine this first part with Hate me, Tender_ Revisited and update it for the Box.

The performance will take place in English.