Black Dress

“If I were to stand here in this dress and tell you I don’t feel like a woman, would you believe me?”

Black Dress is a euphoric solo exploration of nonbinary femme identity told through story, dance and 12 black dresses from performer Becka McFadden’s own wardrobe. Shot through with humour, vulnerability and queer joy, Black Dress invites you on a journey of self-discovery and celebration. From a sunny terrace in Calabria, to the challenges of gender neutral pronouns in Czech, to a queer utopian ski lodge that doesn’t actually exist (yet), Black Dress will make you laugh, think and – above all – feel pleasure.

In addition to the 60-minute performance lecture, Black Dress may be accompanied by a 10-minute pre-show talk and/or exhibition of sources and materials from the creation process. A durational version of the performance, for individuals or small groups of spectators, is also available.

Award

Thalia Award, Alternative Theatre, Becka McFadden, 2023

About the company

Led by Becka McFadden, Beautiful Confusion is a contemporary performance collective based in Prague. We view live performance as a space to slow down, get reacquainted with presence and experience time differently. Our projects emerge from the questions we find most pressing, often at the intersection of the individual and a structure. Movement research, drawing on practices from dance and theatre, including butoh, choreology and Viewpoints, is at the heart of our work, but we also draw approaches and inspiration from photography, collage, live art and sound art. We are currently in based at the independent theatre Venuše ve Švehlovce and have worked with a range of partners and festivals across the Czech Republic, Germany, Slovakia, Greece, Italy and the UK. Our approach to dramaturgy is both intuitive and rigorous, and informed by felt sense and
embodied reading and writing techniques. We are interested in the liminal, the queer and the
complicated, as well as the personal and the specific, which we understand as means of getting
at the issues that impact us all. With wit and humanity, we try to open space for our spectators
to engage in deep dialogue with themselves.