In May 2024 I was sitting in the audience watching a dance piece. I had just realized what I would have to research. I had been preoccupied with asking the question of where does the border of me and other go. And in that moment, it struck me, the thing that was so ridiculously obvious: I would have to research my skin. Specifically, the moments when it had been penetrated or ruptured, the moments when the border had been the most porous. In my case, it took me back to moments of extreme violence toward my body. It took me to the most intimate place of me, my sexuality and the moments other people had entered my skin. It took me to moments of me slicing through my own skin.  

Looking at the self-harm scars on my arms, over 10 years old now, and recalling the memories of violence I carry on my body every day, made me wonder how much my skin had endured. How much I value and respect this large organ of mine which had persevered through so much, yet somehow it was still here. I have a complicated relationship with the scars.  

They have “healed” meaning that new tissue has formed in places where the arm was cut. But the scar tissue differs from the rest of the skin, meaning they will forever be visible. This made me question, is it truly possible ever to heal and what do we even mean by healing? One carries the scars always and how they were formed will always be a part of the past. One will never be the same as before. This is not meant to be a desperate thought but rather one that provides acceptance and understanding. Each of us carries our past with us. People are eager to hear that you are better, that you have healed or “moved on”. But the process is not quite so linear and simple. “You can never be the same, but you can be better” (Brison, 2002, p. 20). 

Looking at the scars brings up questions about past and present. Was it really me who this happened to? Is it really me who did this? Is it really the same body? My body? It feels so distant, yet I am tied to my skin, as close as one can get to anything. 

The times I have been sexually penetrated are countless. The memories form an incoherent collage of moments of violence, pain¹, endurance, disgust, warmth, pleasure and love. The same questions emerge. Was this really me that this happened to? Is it the same body that experienced violence that is able to experience pleasure? The memories of self-harm have a special tone where the pain and pleasure are nearly impossible to separate.  

These lines of inquiry propelled forward my research.The nuanced and multifaceted questions about my relationship to my skin brought up the aspects of past/present and pain/pleasure in connection to victimhood, sexuality, female body and violence. Later also the themes subject/object and passive/active rose to the surface. Questioning these binaries through paradox, meaning both ends are simultaneously present, form the basis of my research. I propose a body and narrative where one does not have to choose between either or.  

I entered the artistic process through starting to work with tights as a tactile second skin, something outside my own body. This act of working outside my body created the necessary distance to be able to access the topic.  

I was drawn to tights because of their combination of fragility and resistance. I started ripping, cutting, sewing, drawing on them and filling them with foam putty and cotton balls. The tights were brittle and airy but ripping and breaking them required violence. I had to use my hands and even my teeth. 

I created an installation prototype where the audience could walk around freely. Torn tights made up the majority of the displayed objects. I placed tights on the floor in a diagonal line leading up to the corner where I sat. The tights on the floor formed a visual that resembled shed skin. Skin left behind. Skin discarded on the floor. Memories of a person who had been inside them, indications of what had happened. "[T]he skin and dress together form one important material, expressive, and functional tissue of a person's being-in-the-world, and a necessary layering fundamental to the experience of being human" (Utriainen, 2006, p. 43, translation me). The “skin” on the floor was reminiscent of the human.

The violence and repetition of the tights were juxtaposed with ironic or darkly humorous elements in the room. Along the long diagonal line of tights there were small cards that read “Oops I did it again” and “I love you”. In the background, a traditional Finnish wedding waltz and wedding marches, were playing. Other objects included body related puns such as “pouring my heart out”, “spilling my guts” and “holey matrimony”. There was also an interactive station where one could break or touch the materials. 

The prototype was experienced by my Master in choreography peers in the Netherlands. During a feedback session the experiences of empathy, hurt, rawness as well as the body and flesh surfaced most strongly. One audience member described, “The path ended by reaching you in flesh. The first moment, when I saw you sitting there, was almost unbearable.” Another remarked, “The most touching aspect for me was how simple materials that I have used or touched in the past became unbearable and untouchable.”

This prototype laid the foundation for this artistic research. I took with me especially the empathetic audience experiences, the presence of simultaneous pain and irony and of course the tights.

I continued working with the tights, but I started putting them on my own body. They were still creating a safety barrier between me and the outside world. They were a layer of protection for my skin. It was as if I was not in my own skin but in a second skin, a more distanced one. A skin that had experienced the traumas, the violence and the past that was not so tightly attached to me. I needed to create distance in order to work artistically, rather than fall into a purely therapeutic process. The tights served as a costume I could put on and take off.  

Religious studies scholar Terhi Utriainen discusses several theories of the function of dress. Dress can be a form of protection (e.g. against weather or supernatural powers), a way to cover oneself and maintain modesty, or a way of seduction or decoration. Dress is a form of self-expression and holds cultural and social significance. Tattoos, surgery and other forms of body modification can also be seen as dress (2006). The definition raises questions about where the border between body and dress lies.“The tissue commonly formed by dress and skin is so intimate and porous that it is often difficult to draw a line between the natural and artificial, ergo the first and the second skin” (Utriainen, 2006, p. 53). 

When considering the tights through these definitions I see their role in my artistic creation as not only a layer of protection (physical and emotional), but also as having cultural significance. Traditionally tights are considered a piece of clothing worn by women, and they are in an interesting realm of an undergarment seen in public. Artists have used hosiery to explore themes such as femininity, sexuality, fetishism, gender and race. One particularly interesting example is Gossamer which brought together 22 artists to create an exhibition solely working with tights or stockings.

Hosiery in the context of art inspires a complex multi-layered emotional dialogue. The emotions are dependent on the viewer and the agency the artist allows the material to convey. What appears to be folly on the surface is extremely complex and deep. Tights represent the skin we are in and opens up a myriad of worlds and underlying socio-political subtexts. (Bedeaux, 2019)

Utriainen further enriches this discourse by examining how dress is otherness in itself: it is a part of a human, but it is something other than human (2006). Using tights as material for art works is engaging with them in this manner: they are their own material entity, yet they remain connected to the human. However, by working through the bodily medium of dance, I chose not to work mainly with the materiality of the tights (a more natural direction perhaps for visual arts, as in Gossamer). Instead, the tights remained closely connected to the body and the human presence. 

I started exploring putting the tights on and taking them off in different ways. Wearing them together with high heels created a different kind of bodily state, almost character-like. The tights contained the skin, while the high heels altered the posture, making my stance less stable. Both the tights and heels were ways of constricting movement, creating awkwardness and physical difficulty. All of these aspects were deeply tied to the experience of womanhood. These form the first glimpses of the basis of my movement research. The tights and heels created a way for the courage to dive deeper inside the embodied experience. As the process evolved, they were no longer needed as protective layers. 

The high heels were left behind, but the tights stayed. The tights, besides having been a tool to access creation, became the costume. They are placed in the context of sexual violence against women. They are placed in discourse with gender, intimacy, control, violence and the body. In After, the removal of the tights becomes an act of liberation, freeing the flesh to jiggle, shake, and bounce. In the end the tights are left behind on the floor, becoming similarly shed skin to that in the prototype installation: a part of the human and yet their own entity. 

The first glimpse of what ended up becoming the main movement research was the occurrence of a seesaw movement on the floor, as seen in the video above. Developing movement in the beginning was challenging. The movement research was dragging notably behind the academic research. Later the processes came together and started developing hand in hand, informing one another. 

The difficulty of creating movement stemmed from two main points: the non-existent artistic vocabulary around the topic and the closeness of trauma. I can recognize a clear intertwined pathway of gaining a sense of safety, bravery, and ownership of my voice both in my personal journey as well as in artistic research. 

Positive experiences sharing my work (I shared my work on several occasions live and online with colleagues and peers, see the slideshow above) strengthened my courage to confront my past and defend my inner victim, which in turn deepened my artistic bravery. This ongoing positive cycle was further informed by the reading and writing I engaged in throughout my research. 

The combination of not having pre-existing artistic practices or vocabularies to draw from in connection to a trauma body not only explains the difficulties of creating movement but also the challenges of verbalizing it. 

When experiencing trauma, the emotional brain takes control, and rational thinking shuts down. The remnants of trauma do not form a coherent, logical narrative; instead, they linger as fragmented sensory impressions and memory traces, including bodily sensations. For trauma survivors, finding the right words to describe the experience can be incredibly difficult, often leaving them feeling detached from their own bodies. Immobility is a common response. However, repeatedly telling the story can gradually alter the way it is experienced. (Rothschild, 2000; Van Der Kolk, 2015). 

Above is a chart of the movement research and material. The material draws from the embodied experience of forceful, violent penetration¹. All the movement material in After is based on this research. The material is accessed through the physicality of the movement, rather than for example an emotional state. Its main essence can be divided into three elements: repetition, friction and penetration. These are the common elements within all of the movement.  

Nakedness plays an important part in the movement research. The body is not contained by clothes (apart from the tights), thus allowing the impact of the movement to oscillate through the body. The spectator being able to see the flesh jiggle, shake and jerk exposes the impact the movement has on the body. The breasts are particularly effective in this regard. Additionally, bare skin against the floor creates more friction than clothing, resulting in sounds and the need to use more force. Nakedness is vital to the bare and fleshy quality of violence. 

I situate my work as tapping into a similar choreographic potential as Austrian choreographer Doris Uhlich’s more than enough (2009) and more than naked (2023). I propose calling this approach as choreography of the flesh. In more than enough Uhlich explores how the body becomes a trademark, questioning the significance of appearance and physical form in dance. She challenges ideals of what "beautiful" truly means. In the process, she developed what she calls a "fat-dance technique," in which she jiggles different parts of her naked body covered in white powder to emphasize the movement. In more than naked the central motto is: “Let’s party our body!” ("more than enough", n.d. & "more than naked, n.d.").

twenty naked dancers make their flesh wiggle, wobble, and crack again. Their bodies slap against each other, sweating and snapping to dance floor hits and lavish sounds.[...] more than naked manages to bring to the stage nakedness free of ideology and provocation. ("more than naked", n.d.)

I recognize the similarity of using the naked body in its fleshliness (including jiggliness and body sounds) as choreographic potential, but the direction of movement development and the context in my work differ significantly. Uhlich’s works operate in what I perceive as a realm of celebrating the human body’s fleshliness, often with undertones of humour.

What sets my approach to movement apart is its focus on the violent and sexual dimensions. Even though I also work with humour in the context of After, its tone is much darker, more cynical and ironic. The naked body is in no way portrayed without an ideology; the feministic approach is evident. I was not aware of Uhlich’s work before starting the research, but it revealed itself as an interesting parallel afterwards.  

Continuing with the movement material graph, it is divided into three separate qualities: shaking, rubbing and being fucked. The first glimpse of the seesaw movement above falls under the category of being fucked. Initially, I employed terms like "seesaw", "dry fucking" or "dry humping" to characterize this quality. Upon further reflection, however, I recognized that the fundamental nature of this quality lies in being a passive recipient rather than an active participant.

The movement has several options for ways of doing one can choose from. The most important discoveries in terms of the binary of active/ passive were the importance of the visibility of the face and the activity of the head and hands. The use of the hands creates more agency within the body and “facelessness” emphasizes the body as an object. These discoveries proposed dramaturgical potential for the development of agency of the body in the piece. 

One important distinction in what the movement communicates lies in whether the impulse is absorbed/stopped in the body or let out. The difference is whether it seems that the impulse is coming from the outside in or inside out. If the movement is let out, going from the inside out, it communicates more the quality of shaking it off, letting it go or releasing it. Absorbing or stopping the movement emphasises the violence. Continuity and fragmentation refer to movement’s relation to time: whether it unfolds with a consistent rhythm or is intentionally broken into fragments. It also considers how the movement develops over time. 

The material offers a variety of positional options. Most positions maintain proximity to the floor, with one exception. They originate from sex positions but also extend into more floor acrobatic realms and I partly use the help of yoga postures in naming them. The positions do not indicate the position of the arms or hands, since I am mostly working with their passivity.  

The one position that clearly differs from others is standing up. In the other positions the body is not quite capable of holding itself upright and it is fighting or surrendering to gravity. The standing up material adopts poses that mimic paintings of mythical, mostly nude women. The positions are embodied through the binary of whore/virgin (see chapter Rape myths – virgins and whores), including women such as Aino, Mary Magdalene, Lilith and Venus. I did experiment with myself and peers from the Master’s in creating movement material that moves beyond mimicking the postures, but I noticed it leaning more into the realm of character work which is not my realm of expertise as a contemporary dance practitioner. It holds potential for the future to explore more movement material happening upright, especially in proximity to the discourse with victimhood and agency. I acknowledge the potential to further expand and elaborate the movement chart in future research.

One of the biggest difficulties in creating the dramaturgy for After was not falling into familiar narratives about victimhood and sexual violence. Specifically, I wanted to avoid romanticizing rape or a linear narrative of a victim becoming an empowered survivor. I did not want to create a recreation of trauma on stage, but a rewriting of it. How could I remain honest to the experience of post victimhood and sexual violence, while the piece still being watchable and relatable for an audience? And how could I create an ambiguous enough body, so that it is not read through the existing narratives or the male gaze (see chapter Telling sexual violence differently)? 

The piece proposes a ritual ¹ for the aftermath of sexual violence where the audience is invited as a witness. The performance frames the transformation from a faceless body into a talking person who integrates back into society. The form draws inspiration from Christian transitional rituals, such as funerals, weddings, and christenings, which mark significant transformations in people's lives, offering Western audiences a familiar framework for understanding. The audience enters while the body is already on display onstage, similarly to a funeral. The first and last song are the same, marking clearly the opening and the closing of the piece. The audience is placed in traditional seating facing the front, which parallels how people would sit in a church.  

The work operates in the tones of tragedy and dark comedy. Working with the perhaps less obvious tone of comedy (and sometimes pleasure), is central to my approach in rewriting and expanding the victim narrative. As a post victim, I claim agency by creating a narrative which can include other experiences beyond suffering. I find humour in the absurdity of rape culture, particularly in the impossible standards placed on the female body regarding how it should be or behave within it. Humour is one way to deal with difficult topics. I acknowledge the difficulty of striking the right tone and source of humour with a subject that is profoundly horrible and not funny. However, the humorous aspect of the work, which interestingly has been present ever since the first prototype installation, has proved to be an important way for test audience members to access the work and the topic.  

The aesthetic choices of the piece are informed by paralleling modern day rape myths with traditional myths of women, specifically Kalevala and Aino (see chapter Rape myths – virgins and whores). One of the most prominent aspects running through the whole piece is songs. There are multiple recognizable pop songs with misogynistic lyrics (see Lyrics in After), such as Sweat by Inner Circle and Drunk Girl by Tom Douglas, which depict rape myths or the surrounding culture quite well. The light-heartedly toned songs are contrasted with the violence happening on the live body on stage.  

Finnish folk tune Saunavihdat is featured as the first and last song. It does not have misogynistic lyrics and it is actually a song traditionally sung in a sauna. It tells the story of children collecting birch tree branches for making a vihta (a birch whisk used in a sauna) and going into the sauna with their mother. It ends with lyrics: “If only mother's children could be preserved from the coldness in the world." (translation me). In the middle of the performance the song is featured sung by a children's choir, combined with the visual image of the performer in a child's pose. This is meant as a subtle, dark notion towards childhood sexual abuse.

Sauna is a big part of Finnish culture being a place for purification, in the old times people would even give birth in the sauna. Being naked with one’s family, friends, or even strangers is considered natural in a sauna. The performance starts and ends with an instrumental version of the song, which features the instrument kantele, the national instrument of Finland and an important part of Kalevala as well. The references to nakedness, the transformational qualities of sauna and Finnish tradition support the world of the performance. 

The performance follows a general arc of increasing agency for the performer. Broadly speaking, it begins with the quality of being fucked, using rubbing as a tipping point to then transition into shaking. Gradually, the performer gains control over her hands and head, while her face becomes visible. As she removes the tights, the sounds of the body become more prominent eventually leading up to the performer finding her voice. In the final section, she walks toward the audience (still carrying traces of the shaking quality), sits among them, and initiates conversation. The gaining of agency is not presented as a linear progression. Instead, it follows a repetitive or spiraling pattern. This development varies in pace, sometimes moving slowly or stalling completely, occasionally regressing, and at other moments accelerating rapidly.

The challenge of presenting a non-linear post victim narrative in a staged piece of less than an hour is that it needs to show some form of development, including a beginning and an ending. One possible experiment for the future would be making a durational performance to challenge the linearity of a victim narrative even more. What became prominent throughout my test showings, is that the audience longs for some kind of a resolution. Providing a resolution of “now all is well” or “whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger” would only contribute to the existing victim narratives. Instead, I propose a fragile post victim body with agency who despite all that happened is able to carry itself and integrate into the audience and offer an ending for now. It is not quite a happy ending. Just as this research offers an afterword rather than a conclusion, it leaves open the possibility for a new cycle of inquiry, informed by what took place before. 

“Long-term processings are often spiral-like. During a long and calm therapy process, the same things resurface, but they are worked on different levels” (Palosaari, 2007, p.114, translation me). Palosaari's quote applies not only to therapy processes but to artistic research as well. A future part of the research will be performing After as much as possible with different kinds of audiences to gather their experiences and evaluate how the piece is received. The after talks are at least as important as the performance itself and provide data for future research.