Hate me, tender

“Hate me, tender”, Teresa Vittucci

Current Dance Works

“Solo for Future Feminism” is the subtitle of Teresa Vittucci’s solo “Hate me, tender”, which took second prize in the 17th Premio awards to promote young theatre and dance companies in 2018. In it, she tackles one of the most important female figures: the Virgin Mary. Mary is the epitome of the gentle, mourning mother, the compassionate woman, the holiest of holies. Revered and given the function of Mother of God by the church authorities, Mary is criticised by feminists as a role model laden with female stereotypes. In this first part of a choreographic and performative research into hate and feminism, Teresa Vittucci liberates the figure of Mary from her associations and her ambivalence, presents her as icon, slave and heroine, and thus gives her a stage for a future feminism.

Isabelle Fuchs, jury member:

“It takes Teresa Vittucci no more than forty or so minutes to complete a metaphorical, and equally methodical, deconstruction of sensitive and eminently political subjects: nothing less than a dismantling of the myth of the Virgin Mary, destroying 2,000 years of Catholicism in the process, but also disassembling the codes of propriety and sexual domination that underpin the mechanisms of capitalism. ‘Hate me, tender’ is a committed performance that blends cultivated provocation with accessible radicalism. Contained within this brief moment of time is a ferocious, brave intelligence that compels you to think, and keeps you thinking. Above all, there is one of our most promising artists.”

Teresa Vittucci

Teresa Vittucci was born in 1985 in Vienna, where she graduated from the conservatory, and also attended The Ailey School in New York City and the Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance (SEAD), before completing a Master’s in Expanded Theater at the Bern University of the Arts. The choreographer and dancer lives and works in Zurich and produces solo pieces such as “Unleash” (2012), “Lunchtime” (2015) and “All Eyes On” (2017), which was shown at the Swiss Dance Days 2019 in Lausanne. She created “We Bodies” (2019) with Claire Vivianne Sobottke and Michael Turinsky; in it she explores the body and the characteristics assigned to it: man, woman, fat, disabled, beautiful and so on. She has also worked with Nils Amadeus Lange in “U Betta Cry” (2013), with Marie-Caroline Hominal in “Taxi-Dancers” (2016) and, regularly, with Simone Aughterlony. In 2014–15 she was engaged as an actor at the Staatstheater Mainz and received an outstanding performer award from the City of Zurich in 2018. In 2019–20 Teresa Vittucci is a Young Associate Artist (YAA!) at the Tanzhaus Zürich.