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In our present reality of alternate facts, deep fake AI, and political fraud, I seek an answer to some of the biggest questions in popular culture today: What is the value of truth?
Do we believe in honesty? Is being honest a political act?
Can truth be embodied?
A multidisciplinary solo project, Brutal Honesty interrogates what personal truth is and whether we can ever be truly honest with ourselves and others. Zornitsa attempts to embrace the multiplicity of all she is in the present moment (honest lies and fake beliefs) as a political act against dualism and polarization.
A choreographer and improviser with 20 years of stage experience, she dances, speaks, sings fake opera, makes up poetry on the spot, interviews the audience, moves objects around the room, drinks the cold water when things get too hard, and ultimately attempts to define and understand honesty.
Breaking the 4th wall the performance works within the boundaries of the confessional, the mundane, and the absurd. Brutal Honesty is also a practice developed in relation to the works of Deborah Hay and Jeanine Durning. Sometimes funny, the piece includes nudity and live-feed special effects.
Interrogating what it means to be honest and authentic, Zornitsa questions normative behaviors, societal norms, and the performative nature of all our identities.
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Biography:
Zornitsa Stoyanova (USA/BUL) is an award-winning performance artist, curator, writer, lighting, and video designer. Based between Sofia, Bulgaria, and Philadelphia, US, she directs her company BodyMeld which along with presenting her work, focuses on creating programs to support independent choreographers in both her locales.
Her stage, video, and photographic work use the female body as an abstract object revealing ideas of strength in female sensuality and emotionality. On stage, she explores the power dynamics between dancers and audiences, and personal stories using vulnerability as a strength. Her esthetics merge the mundane with the fantastical and futurist sci-fi imagery. Since 2013 an overarching theme in her work has been exposing the “otherness” living within us, as a way to recognize that all humans are the same. Since 2020, she has been researching a movement and speaking practice – Brutal Honesty – that has the goal of not censoring oneself. Zornitsa is presently working toward her master's degree in Choreography - COMMA at Codarts and Fontys Universities in the Netherlands.
As a dancer, she has performed for Zhana Pencheva, Sasha Waltz & Guests, Eiko & Koma, Boris Charmatz, and improvisation companies Emergent Improvisation Ensemble, and Graffito Works in the US. Her screendance films have been shown in festivals across the U.S. and in Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay, Bulgaria, Ireland, Germany, and Bangladesh.
She teaches improvisation techniques for performance, dances on camera, and composition and has done so in Philadelphia, France, Hungary, her native Bulgaria, and online. Zornitsa is also a mother of two and editor for thINKingDANCE.net.
www.bodymeld.org
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Icebox Project Space, 1400 N American St, Philadelphia, PA 19122-3828, United States,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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