{"id":4872,"date":"2025-10-12T15:25:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-12T15:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/?p=4872"},"modified":"2025-11-02T13:51:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T13:51:21","slug":"harald-beharie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/harald-beharie\/","title":{"rendered":"Harald Beharie: Batty Bwoy (2022)"},"content":{"rendered":"Monday, 24 November at 6:00 p.m.
\ndance performance and after-talk
\nThe Old Power Station
\nDuration: 75 min.<\/p>\n

With the solo Batty Bwoy (2022) \u2013 a title that could be translated into English as faggot, or the more literal, archaic, and forgotten Dorothy’s friend \u2013 dancer, performer, and choreographer Harald Beharie introduced an unparalleled disquiet to the international dance scene. Batty Bwoy is remarkably effective because it uses basic theatre techniques to expose the queer body on stage in a completely vulnerable and transparent way, engaging with spectator bodies (or the body in general). This prompts us to determine whether we are more defined by our identity or our place in the world, a question psychoanalysis once linked to the power of terror. The work positions us at the centre of knowledge that we must objectify, perceive, and define ourselves in relation to. It compels us to ask: What emerges if phobias associated with different social genders beyond heteronormativity are wielded as a performative text?<\/p>\n

Harald Beharie explains: \u201cBatty Bwoy is a solo which doesn\u2019t start with a question, or a critique, but from a place of play and desire, entangled in violence and charming cruelty. Through a reappropriation of the Jamaican term \u2018Batty Bwoy\u2019 (literally, butt boy), slang for a queer person, the work twists and turns the myths of the black queer body unfolding vulnerable possibilities in an interplay of consciousness and naivety. Scrutinizing the absurdity of a queer monstrosity, Batty Bwoy articulates through the porosity of bodies and languages, their mouths swallowing and regurgitating the corporal fictions projected onto their skins. In an odyssey of droning prog-rock, Batty Bwoy attacks and embraces sedimented narratives around the fear of the queer body as a perverse and deviant figure. The expression \u2018Batty Bwoy\u2019 is used to evoke an ambivalent creature that exists in the threshold of the precarious body, liberated power, joy, and batty energy! The work has found inspiration in mythologies, disgusting stereotypes, feelings, and fantasies of the queer body and identities, homophobic dancehall lyrics, 70s Giallo films from Italy, resilient \u2018gully queens\u2019 (Jamaican homeless trans people exposed to harassment and violence), and queer voices in Norway and Jamaica that have visited and taken part of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

Choreography and performance: Harald Beharie
\nArtistic collaborators\/sculpture: Karoline Bakken Lund and Veronica Bruce
\nComposer: Ring van M\u00f6bius
\nSound designer: Jassem Hindi
\nOutside eye: Hooman Sharifi, In\u00e9s Belli
\nSupported by: Kulturr\u00e5det, Fond for lyd og bilde, FFUK, Sandnes Municipality, Oslo Municipality and TOU.
\nProducer: Mariana Suikkanen Gomes and Kristina Melb\u00f8 Valvik
\nDistribution: Damien Valette
\nThanks to: Tobias Leira, Ingeborg Staxrud Olerud, Torbj\u00f8rn Kolbeinsen and Phillip McLeod<\/p>\n

*Slavcho Dimitrov will speak with Harald Beharie after the performance in the foyer of the Old Power Station. The conversation will be held in English.
\n* This performance features nudity.
\nOrganised by: Kino \u0160i\u0161ka and NDA Slovenia in collaboration with Bunker<\/p>\n

Entry: 8\/10 EUR<\/a><\/p>\n

Supported by:
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

Cover photo: Margot Sparkes","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Monday, 24 November at 6:00 p.m. dance performance and after-talk The Old Power Station Duration: 75 min. With the solo Batty Bwoy (2022) \u2013 a title that could be translated into English as faggot, or the more literal, archaic, and forgotten Dorothy’s friend \u2013 dancer, performer, and choreographer Harald Beharie introduced an unparalleled disquiet to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4944,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cofestival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4872"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4872\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5047,"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4872\/revisions\/5047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cofestival.si\/2025\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}