Kamila Kouřilová
ŽENA RŮŽE NEMĚL DOST
In my work I deal with the approach to intimacy and relationships. This performance is about respect to one’s own borders as well as to the borders of someone else. These topics are translated in context to rape and consent. It is rape that is defined in the Criminal Code only as an act in which violence, the threat of violence or the abuse of defencelessness is used. For example, up to 70% of rape cases in which the victim freezes, does not fight back, and therefore the perpetrator does not have to use violence, do not fall under the current definition. The performance ŽENA RŮŽE NEMĚL DOST interprets the fairy tale of The Sleeping Beauty. The princess falls into a deep sleep, a prince rescues her with a kiss to which he was given no consent. In the original version of this tale from the Italian poet Giovanni Battista Basile, the prince regularly visits the princess to rape her, the princess conceives twins as a result and awakens from her sleep only when one of the twins sucks out the thorn, which put her under the sleeping curse, from her finger. In today’s version the story is told in a lighter manner – the prince “only” kisses the princess. “Well, nothing happened; it is just a kiss; but… he is pretty” these are some of the forms of gaslighting which the victims of rape are exposed to hearing. I devote my work to sewing, and that is why I considered it to be a great idea to create two costumes – for the princess and the prince. The costumes are united in their white colour while keeping their original shape as described/used in the fairy tales. I embroidered a sword, a blood stain and two crowns onto the costumes. The sword being a symbol for the macho prince. The blood stain as the symbol of defilement, violation. The crowns as symbols of the prince and the princess – the main characters of the story.