TOUGHGUY

A piece in progress by Amanda Donato

Process captured by Jen Sintra

TOUGHGUYS is a new duet choreographed by Amanda Donato exploring extreme competition within the creative self and amongst colleagues. Two male-presenting dancers exist as pieces of a female psyche, present as the environment itself. From a place of survival and protection, this female has been operating out of masculine energy for decades. There is a palpable repression of her divine feminine, reinforced by her family and hardcore capitalist North American structures that claims there is no time for rest. Rewarded for burnout, she subconsciously perceives the world as her enemy and by association: her own intuitive needs as her enemy.

In the context of performing arts spaces, women are often pitted against each other. What should be liberating spaces and projects too easily morph into hardened, volatile experiences. The reasoning behind casting two male-presenting dancers is to blur visible gender lines and work from a place of representing an energetic imbalance in a creative female operating in a post-modern world. The two dancers symbolize the dominant masculine energy in this competitive female.

Dancers: Ginjo Sakai, Yuki Takahashi | Music: Kaan Bulak, Simon Höfele