Party Girl is an investigation into the female body as an object of desire, inspired by Georges Bataille’s reflection that locates the very essence of desire in the figure of the prostitute. An almost archetypal image, she embodies death beneath the mask of life, thus representing the very meaning of eroticism, which Bataille defines as the place where life and death become indistinguishable.

Prostitution transforms the offered body into a lifeless object—or rather, into the dead centre of unleashed desire. The body becomes a pure object of longing, and it is precisely its state of passivity that allows the viewer to project onto it whatever image they desire. The object of desire exists only through the desire of another.

In Party Girl, this process of objectification renders the human body almost inorganic. Beginning with postures and movements capable of activating desire within the collective imagination, the performers construct a minimal choreographic language composed of stylised, slowed, suspended gestures. The sensual and erotic dimension is gradually stripped away as the body progressively loses its vitality, becoming an object, a mannequin.

The perception of objectification is intensified by an offstage voice that, through commands given to the dancers, shapes the structure of the performance in real time. Lasting traces of the creative process include Antoine d’Agata’s interviews and photographs, testimonies gathered from organisations supporting women exiting street prostitution, and conversations with anthropologists and sex workers.

On stage, three television sets appear as abandoned relics, broadcasting images of landscapes, streets, nightclubs, private apartments, and borderlands—places where everything deemed “illicit” is allowed to exist.

“You call me Iku, but my name is Izumi.

 

When you film me, the camera records. When clients look at me, their memory records. In the half-light I slowly open my eyes and make out the faces of the clients. I feel their gaze settle on me. The light grows brighter. I dance on the stage and I feel exposed. I slowly undress, and their gazes become more intense as I sink deeper. I close my eyes and caress my body. When I look at it again, a glow in the darkness separates me from reality, and the world becomes more beautiful. I do not notice the moment when my consciousness slips away. In that state, a part of myself that I usually hide emerges. When the feeling is the same on stage as it is in the room, I experience pleasure and dance as though in a dream. Some stare at my body, others at the stage. Their gazes come from everywhere, falling upon every part of my body.”

 

(Aka Ana, Antoine d’Agata)