Scrolling through their phones they go in search of sex, sex like they’ve never had before, sex beyond the imaginable. Horny and determined they get on their bikes, a phial of GHB or a bag of 3mmc or something in their pockets. Disobeying the request for social distancing, giving the health cult the finger, rebelling against the loneliness that is lurking all the time. They meet on a couch in a random living room somewhere in town. They snuggle up, they talk and talk, they fuck each other to kingdom come, sometimes they faint, in each other’s arms, they take care of each other. Meet: The NarcoSexuals.
In his latest work, Dries investigates the ins and outs of sexual drug use, a phenomenon that is gaining popularity especially among gay men. Forty years after the start of the gay liberation, we’re entering a ‘narco-sexual revolution’, even though this current liberation is invisible to the outside world. What pushes people to even risk their own lives? How different are they allowed to be?
Visitors enter the site, can walk around and decide for themselves how long they want to stay and experience the work. Each performance day lasts six hours long.
concept: Dries Verhoeven
performance: Bráulio Bandeira, Matteo Bifulco, Tamar Blom, Vincent Clavaguera, Wojciech Grudziński, Estefano Romani, Barnaby Savage
understudies: Mher Brutyan, Victor Mendes
movement material developed in collaboration with the performers
dramaturgy: Hella Godee & Miguel Melgares
sound design: Thijs van Vuure
assistance: Marte Boneschansker
internship text/direction: Hendrik de Pecker
technique: Roel Evenhuis, Peer Thielen
set dresser: Eveline Didderen
production: ‘n More – Ellen van Bunnik, Lise van den Hout, Thijs de Bruijn, Jitske Weijand
internship production: Maaike Postma
extras: Oliver Wagstaff, Lisanne Pol, Rafael Matt, Sasa Hara, Marie Clavaguera, August Geerlings, Jannes van Arkel, Marvin Staal, Gwen de Visser, Marco Franssen
a production by: Studio Dries Verhoeven
Co-commissioned by SPRING Performing Arts Festival
Supported by Fonds Podiumkunsten, Gemeente Utrecht, Fentener van Vlissingen Fonds, K.F. Hein Fonds
Press
The installation constantly confronts you ingeniously with your own prejudices. In this case, you don't need drugs to have ecstatic sex, do you? Doesn't that need indicate an inner emptiness and fear of true intimacy? But the longer you look, and the more you catch yourself with your own fascination and voyeurism, the more confusing it becomes.
The new installation by Dries Verhoeven looks more theatrical and dramatic than I am used to in his work. Swaying between a peepshow and the re-enactment of Grindr sex date, a wonderful game of looking inside and out arises.
