Hi, I’m Ventcislava, a kinaesthetic artist and designer. Currently, I’m pursuing my MA in Digital Direction at the Royal College of Art. My project, Cycles, in collaboration with dancer and choreographer Emma Poyer, is a one of the outcomes of my exploration into how immersive technology and dance can reimagine the narratives around women's bodies and identities in the patriarchal society we live in.
In this project, I researched and explored how the ways we move, are seen as women, are expected to behave has been shaped by systems of power that predate us exceed us such as patriarchy, capitalism, whiteness, heteronormativity. These forces are internalised, embedded in our gestures, silences, the female compulsions to please, to conform. In digital spaces these same structures are replicated. I want to create new spaces that critically engage with these themes.
This project begins at the dining table, a familiar, everyday space where so many of us first learn how power works. Where gendered expectations are passed on, generation after generation. This is the root of Cycles, an attempt to trace how that conditioning moves through our bodies, and how we might start to break it.
Through dance, technology, and sound, Cycles brings feminist questions into the scene. Into the performance space, into contemporary dance, into immersive tech.
Collaborating with sound designer Zlata Mechetina and soloist Sienna Tan, whose voice symbolises the silenced women at the table, we aim to reclaim these spaces. The project has both a live and VR component, where the audience becomes part of the dining table, immersing themselves in the narrative loops.
Your support will help fund the second part of the project the live performance, the set design, materials, and the contributions of my incredible collaborators. If this resonates with you, please consider supporting!
Thank you!