Unsex Me Here
2026 | Berlin | sophiensaele
set design
In Unsex Me Here trans femmes meet sages-femmes, the perimenopausal become seriously regal bitches, and voiceless queens make themselves heard in a kaleidoscope of ritual acts of feminist solidarity. In a dance and drag performance, Maria F. Scaroni and Olympia Bukkakis explore the figures of the Queen and the Witch, both in the Western historical imagination and in the queer and now.
Drag queen and choreographer Olympia Bukkakis is often called a queen (because she is one) and dancer and choreographer Maria F. Scaroni is frequently labelled a witch (because she is one). For this piece they take these often humorously ascribed titles seriously, exploring what it means to be a monarch, healer, drag queen, crone, trans femme and (peri)menopausal woman; what it means to be childless and yet fruitful. To refuse reproduction, and yet multiply.
For their first performative collaboration Maria F. Scaroni and Olympia Bukkakis stage a duet that draws on their own lived experiences as well as their joint practice of somatic drag. Unsex Me Here begins with two familiars alone in a room strewn with the debris of feminine life. Throughout the piece they dress up and down, experiment with different ways of moving, speaking and singing, and support each other in various numbers, virtuosic nonsenses and necromantic prayers.
Concept, choreography, performance: Maria F. Scaroni, Olympia Bukkakis
Lighting design, technical direction: Hanna Kritten Tangsoo
Composition, sound design: Malu Peeters
Set: Camille Lacadee
Set assistance: Sy-Yu Chen
Costume: Hungry, with additional pieces by Jay Barry Matthews and Alexis Mersmann
Production: Anna Chwialkowska
Production assistance, artistic collaboration: Camila Malenchini
Outside Eyes: Camila Malenchini, Oozing Gloop, Maciej Sado, Dalai Cellai
With guest performances by Fagatha Crispy and Oozing Gloop
With thanks to: Melanie Jame Wolf, Rupert Enticknap
A production by Olympia Bukkakis and Maria F. Scaroni in coproduction with Sophiensæle. Funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion. Supported by Tanzfabrik Berlin, PSR Kollektiv, PACT Zollverein Essen, Emanat Ljubljana and Dance is Ancient Malmö. Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.