CRY CRY KILL KILL Fight Club
A wrestling-inspired workshop for 18+ femmes, exploring physicality, play-fighting and what it means to ‘fight like a girl’.
No wrestling or fighting experience required.
Battersea Arts Centre London 21st March (11-6pm)
and
Barbican London 26th March (4-9pm)
WHAT IS CRY CRY KILL KILL?
CRY CRY KILL KILL is the upcoming show from Louise Orwin & Co. It is currently in its final stages of research and development, and is due to premiere in October 2020.
CRY CRY KILL KILL explores female rage and what it means to be a ‘survivor’ in a post #MeToo world. Inspired by ‘final girls’ in horror movies, ‘Sad Girl Theory’ and medical histories of institutionalised women, the show interrogates hysteria, how rage is gendered, and how female suffering has been fetishized and our bodies have been controlled. It asks what happens when the ‘Sad Girl’™ façade cracks, when we take back our bodies, take up space and express our rage.
The show uses live video work, noise music and wrestling to explore these themes. In 2017, Louise began to ‘wrestle’ with femme fighting force Femme Feral. After this she began to question all the ways her body had previously been conditioned as ‘female’: feeling ‘fragile’, or weak, or not physically able to ‘rough and tumble’ with the boys growing up. Fighting with Femme Feral made her feel strong, and empowered, and like she wouldn’t break for the first time in her life (which is quite something for a self-confessed ‘Sad Girl’). Louise would like to bring the energy of this new understanding of her body, and the empowerment and catharsis she felt fighting with Femme Feral, into this new work.
For a taste of this work, and the style of ‘fighting’ described watch this: https://vimeo.com/300817030/c70125630b
WHAT IS THE CRY CRY KILL KILL FIGHT CLUB?
As part of the final stage of R&D for her new show, Louise would like to experiment with what it is like to fight with those who have never fought before, with a view to understanding others’ experiences of their bodies in this situation too, and how this can be incorporated into the show.
The CRY CRY KILL KILL Fight Club is a workshop, which will teach participants to ‘fight’. Learning to ‘fight’ CRY CRY KILL KILL-style, means learning safe and effective movement drawn from the world of wrestling. The workshop will aim to get us to think about the ways we use our bodies, the limits we impose on ourselves, and the limits society and gender imposes on us. Ultimately, it will ask whether we can use this style of fighting as a method of exploring catharsis and freedom in a fun, performative way.
The workshop will run 11-5pm at Battersea Arts Centre on 21st March, and will give participants basic training and induction into the CRY CRY KILL KILL Fight Club. After this participants will then be given the opportunity to fight as part of a larger group of performers in a work in progress showing of the work at the Barbican Centre on March 26th.
PLEASE NOTE: Although no experience of wrestling is required, this workshop will include physical contact, grappling, possibly lifting each other and more. Participants attend at their own risk.
Rough Workshop Outline - 21st March (11-6pm) + 26th March (4-9pm)
21st March: Introduction to CRY CRY KILL KILL and the themes of the work; Wrestling-inspired movement Training; Safety Briefing + Warm Up; Free-form Improvisation and Play-Fighting; Rehearsal for performance on 26th March
26th March: Rehearsal with larger company of performers at Barbican Centre; costume + make-up session; participation in public work-in-progress sharing of work at 7.45pm (length of show is 60mins)
WHO IS THE CRY CRY KILL KILL FIGHT CLUB FOR?
This is a workshop for:
- Femme-identifying participants over 18
- those interested in exploring the limits of their bodies, in a fun and safe movement-based practice
- anyone who has ever wondered whether they might secretly want to fight, or to wrestle
- anyone interested in working with their bodies in a new way through performance
- anyone interested in thinking about gender and movement
ACCESS
As a company we are committed to providing accessible working practices. If you have access needs, please let us know and we can explain more about the physical aspects of the workshop, and what we can do to meet your needs.
WHO WILL BE THERE
The workshop will be facilitated by Louise and an assistant. Louise has created the workshop in collaboration with pro-wrestler Heather Bandenberg.
ABOUT LOUISE
Louise is an award-winning London-based performance artist making research-driven performance projects about the female experience, and what it means to identity as female in a fast-moving, media-saturated world which prizes masculinity.Her work is provocative and intimate, covering subjects that are close to home, hard to get your head around, and need to be spoken about.
Louise’s work often involves in depth research within marginalised communities, whose voices she hopes to amplify within the work. To date, she has worked with communities of teenage girls on Pretty Ugly, and survivors of sexual assault in Oh Yes Oh No. With CRY CRY KILL KILL she is working with trans and femme participants between the ages of 14 and 70 to research how experiences of sadness and rage are gendered, and how we can become empowered by raising our voices and claiming back our bodies.
For any questions please contact: participation@louiseorwin.com