The dance performance Deinos is an original work that explores the body as a space of the repressed, fear and inherited trauma, but also as a space of resistance, freedom and transformation.

We were interested in the ways in which mechanisms of violence become inscribed in our bodies, shape them and are transmitted through collective memory. What experiences of violence are hidden in our everyday gestures, even when we have not experienced violence directly? In which situations do we unconsciously speed up our pace, adjust our clothes, avoid someone, look away, glance back, stop breathing, or stop ourselves from saying or doing something?

We explored the body as a space in which subtle mechanisms of manipulation operate — the invisibility of violence and the moment when care becomes control, love becomes possession, protection becomes surveillance, and safety becomes isolation from the world.

Taking the myth of Persephone and Hades as inspiration for creating the world of the performance, we explored the underworld as a patriarchal system that shapes our bodies and our lives. We were interested in how this underworld has taught our bodies to remain in a constant state of survival.

Persephone’s experience of the underworld became our starting point for exploring the contemporary female body as a space of an archetypal female experience. How has the underworld taught us that it is dangerous to be curious, to hope, to love, to dream?

By exploring a body that has learned it must always be ready to run, disappear, shrink and adapt, we discovered what within us remains alive — what resists, continues to breathe and dream, and keeps fighting for freedom.