RETACH 

a small choreography of parting

05.09.25, 19h

– performative activation of the space including audience

Over the past years, Teresa has been working around topics of grief and loss. For this activation, they will explore the hug as a gesture of holding and parting: as a performative ritualized transition.

To hug is to envelop, but also to negotiate. As a widespread and emotionally charged gesture, it transcends language, inviting to remember our non-human histories. Hugs can have significant biopsychological effects. When consensual and safe, they trigger the release of oxytocin, stimulate dopamine and lower cortisol level. They increase cooperation, trust and empathy, they relieve stress. Hugging has the power to make space for softening and making amends. Something we so urgently need more of right now. But touch is never neutral. It evokes the imbrication of embodied histories: permission, safety, societal norms and ideations around how certain bodies ought to be are inscribed in the ways we reach. Especially for chronically ill, dis_abled or neurodivergent bodies, a hug can mean risk.

Together we will explore the embodiment of holding, quite literally, as a space of resonance, giving space to and being held by Shedhalle and the ProtoZones – a chapter of gatherings, art making, hosting and experiencing processes that took place over the last five years.

Teresa Vittucci ( they,she,daddy) is an artist working across contemporary performance, dance, theatre, and visual art. Their practice investigates feminist and queer perspectives on the body, pop culture, history, religion, and class. Bad jokes are always part of the process, and humour, together with abstraction, is a central method in their artistic thinking. Teresa’s work brings together somatic practice, performative precision and the work with drama or “the dramatic” in dialogue with theoretical research. Their work enters into dialogue with new materialist, queer, and post-humanist discourse to think through and with the body as a political terrain. As a fat, neurodivergent, and queer artist, their perspective is shaped equally by lived bodily experience and by both formal and informal education. These positionalities are embedded deeply in both their artistic, performative and research practices.

Besides Teresa’s extensive solo work, they have collaborated with several artists and institutions including Melanie Jame Wolf, Colin, Self, Michael Turinsky, Claire V. Sobottke, Simone Aughterlony, Marie Caroline Hominal, Trajal Harrell, Alexander Giesche, Annina Machaz, Theater HORA and Nils Amadeus Lange. Her works have been presented at Impulstanz, Centre Pompidou, Kampnagel Hamburg, Theaterspketakel Zurich, Kinani Festival Moçambique, Institute for Creative Arts in Cape Town, Deutsches Theater Berlin, les urbaines, Impulse Theaterfestival, Festival Santarcangelo, Manifesta and several others.
Teresa has received the danceWEB scholarship and the Austrian STARTstipendium scholarship and was awarded the Recognition prize by the City of Zürich and the Swiss Dance Prize for HATE ME, TENDER. In 2022 Teresa created RIDE on invitation by Centre Pompidou and Leopoldine Turbat. In 2024 Teresa launched their ongoing research on affect through a series of labs, performances and stage works around GRIEF, RAGE and JOY. Teresa is currently an accomplice Artist at Tanzhaus Zürich.Their trilogy In Praise of Vulnerability – HATE ME, TENDER, DOOM, and SANE SATAN – continues to be presented at national and international venues as stand-alone works.