Batty Bwoy
Harald Beharie (Oslo)
No spoken language | recommended for ages 18 and up | contains nudity and loud music
With his outstandingly provocative solo BATTY BWOY, Norwegian-Jamaican choreographer and performer Harald Beharie brings a snappy yet electrifying exploration of queer body images to the stage. The starting point is the reappropriation of the Jamaican slang term ‘Batty Bwoy’ – originally a homophobic slur for queer men. Beharie transforms the derogatory attribution into an ambiguous creature – a being between fragility and strength, gentleness and wildness, desire and resistance. Driven by the booming sound of the progressive rock band Ring Van Möbius, a visceral choreography unfolds that tracks down, deconstructs and, at the same time, performatively embraces myths, clichés and fantasies about Black queer bodies. Beharie draws on references from Jamaican dancehall, Italian giallo films, queer voices from Norway and Jamaica, and the indomitable ‘Gully Queens’. His naked body becomes a projection surface, a provocation and a source of power.
BATTY BWOY was nominated for the Norwegian Dance Critics Award in 2022 and won the prestigious Hedda Award for Best Dance Performance in 2023. The internationally touring production is an intense invitation to question stereotypes – and to face the complexity of queer existence.
Biography
Harald Beharie(he/they) is a Norwegian-Jamaican performer and choreographer based in Oslo, Norway.
Harald's choreographic practice are collaborative voyages, navigating through realms of ambiguity and phantasm, punctuated by themes of construction and deconstruction, hope and uncertainty, disinterest and emotional intensity. They hold a special interest for the DIY and vulnerability of being in the unknown. In a quest to dissect established corporeal and bodily narratives their work celebrates a spectrum of embodiment—ranging from the pathetic to the ecstatic, the collapsing to the exuberant, the faltering to the tenacious while fostering a deliberate naiveté and queer playfulness. Haralds focus is being with local people, local ideas, and developing ideas with and within the community.
In 2023 Batty Bwoy won the Hedda prize for “best dance production”.
Credits
Choreography + Performance Harald Beharie Artistic Collaboration + Sculpture Karoline Bakken Lund, Veronica Bruce Composer Ring van Möbius Sound Designer Jassem Hindi Outside Eye Hooman Sharifi, Inés Belli Production Mariana Suikkanen Gomes, Kristina Melbø Valvik Distribution Damien Valette
Guest Performance Support Performing Arts Hub Norway
Production Harald Beharie Koproduktion Dansens Hus, Oslo,RAS Thanks to Tobias Leira, Ingeborg Staxrud Olerud, Torbjørn Kolbeinsen, Phillip McLeod. Förderer Kulturrådet, Fond for lyd og bilde, FFUK, Sandnes Kommune. Supported by Municipality of Oslo, TOU, PAHN – Performing Arts Hub Norway
Creation Dansens Hus Oslo, 20 January 2022
Guest Performance Support
Performing Arts Hub Norway
Main Supporters
euro-scene leipzig is institutionally supported by the City of Leipzig and the Saxon State Ministry for Higher Education, Culture and Tourism. Co-financed by tax revenue on the basis of the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.