Choreography, light design, dancer: Aleksander Zain

Text: English / Serbian with English surtitles

Body Confessions is an intimate confession of an artist’s relation to his own body, as well as other things in life that are touched or influenced in any way by that relation.

Through three parts of the piece, we can see the contrast of body relation that has been indicated to us through society, and relation to one’s own body that is personal and self-knowing. Creating the quality of contrasted relations in the first two parts of the show (shame-strength, fault-acceptance, confusion-understanding, chaotic-calm, personal-public, etc.), I want to show how society treats the body (and not just a trans* body like mine), how the body is influenced, and how it can cope with it, pinpointing the fact our body is stronger than we believe it to be.

The piece ends with the artist’s body becoming the canvas for his intimate confession, explaining ’the road he had to travel ‘, being a trans man who is a dancer and an artist, and what that meant for his relation to his own physical body.

I believe that the human body is much stronger than we believe it to be.

I believe that every border body faces is movable.

Move it a bit by bit, every day, as much/if you can.

Today, as in recent times, I’m just interested in taking the body as such as my subject.

Body as a tool.

Body as pain.

Body as strength.

Body as the only natural personal property that I believe we have, and that none can take from me.

Body as mine.

Body, as I strongly believe that someone must feel with their body the same as I do.

Body Confessions premiered on May 17th 2021 in Belgrade at the Center for Cultural Decontamination, as part of the IDAHOT celebration supported by Council of Europe Office in Belgrade. After that, the piece was shown in other Belgrade theaters like Bitef (2022) and Heartefact house (2024), as well as in other cities in Serbia (Novi Sad, Pančevo...), and Romania (invzbl festival, Timisoara). This dance solo was also recognized as one of the important dance shows in the contemporary dance scene in the Balkans that deals with queer thematics, and the documentation of the piece was exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art Zagreb (Croatia, 2024/25, carried out by Nomad Dance Academy partners).

Aleksander Zain (b. 1992, Belgrade) is a Berlin-based dancer, choreographer, and visual/new media artist. His work is rooted in the belief that the human body is much stronger than we were thought to believe. He trained at MAPA (Netherlands), Station’s Puzzle program (Belgrade), and Tanzfabrik (Berlin), and studied philosophy at the University of Belgrade. His dance solo Body Confessions (2021) was shown multiple times in the Balkans, and received recognition as a queer-themed piece. Since the season 2022/23 Zain has been involved with the Heartefact House theater in Belgrade for the piece Before We Begin. Zain has also performed in numerous independent productions and received awards for his roles. In parallel, his performance art practice includes collaborations with VestAndPage and multiple appearances at the Venice International Performance Art Week, multiple long-durational pieces, reperforming for Marina Abramović’s retrospective The Cleaner, as well as the 10-day walk-based work ACTA DISTANTIAE (2023), realized within the IMPORT/EXPORT platform, which he co-founded. His video work has been shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art Belgrade and other galleries. Zain was an artist in residence with art institutions and organizations in Finland (Nelimarkka Museum), Romania (invzbl festival/Basca Theater), and Germany (Academie Schloss Solitude, upcoming). Together with a colleague, Isidora Poledica, he is a co-author of the podcast From Body To Body which deals with training, nutrition, injury prevention, and working conditions of the dancers in the Balkans and beyond. Actively engaged with LGBTIQ+ and TIGV communities, Zain creates dedicated programs and workshops for trans and queer youth. He also brings over a decade of experience in event production, theater tech, and lighting design across major festivals and independent projects.

Tickets können Sie unter diesem Link kaufen : https://aleksanderzain.com/bodyconberlin/