Ekleido’s latest touring production Femina has its London premiere at The Place. It is a daring, exhilarating and grotesque dance piece set to explore the “full spectrum of femininity”.
Hannah Ekholm and Faye Stoeser, who have collaborated since 2018 and founded Ekleido in 2023, ambitiously scale up from duo to their first work for an ensemble of six, joined by Roshaan Asare, Rory Clarke, Tia Hockey and Jasper Narvaez. The result is a 60-minute adrenaline rush mixing contemporary dance, House dance, Waacking, New Way Vogue and gymnastics. If you are a fan of the ecstasy and sublimity of club culture in works by Hofesh Shechter but want to experience it through street dance, then Femina deeply satisfies that desire, with an extra pinch of horror and metamorphosis.
The six dancers, in uniform black, highly stylised sequinned costumes, move through a dark, energised electronic soundscape by Floating Points, alongside Ela Minus and Stella Mozgawa. In Ekholm and Stoeser’s choreography, tutting (hand gestures) and hairography (hair motion) are iconic. Striking images emerge from long hair tossed in the air and expressive hands. The dancers move together as if in a trance, forming grotesque figures with many hands and legs.
In one chilling scene under deep red light, a dancer stands still, staring at the audience while lifting a giant black sequinned dress. From beneath it spill hands, long hair and a head tilted to one side, covered by hands except for its wide-open eyes, as if the dancer is giving birth to monstrous figures, or the monstrous is leaking out of their body. It is like a gooey, sticky moment from a classic 1970s giallo film about dark female power. As in their earlier pieces and films, Ekholm and Stoeser’s visual language is as powerful as their choreography.
As a piece about layers of femininity, Femina sees the dancers play with stereotypically feminine symbols on the dance floor, like bling shoulder bags and glittery high heels. They also battle. In solos, duos and trios, the sequences strike a great balance between dance battles and contemporary dance composition. They hug too. Tender embraces between the heated battles and clubbing are breathing moments, and feminine ones, in those energy-charged dark spaces.
Beyond the soundscape and haze, the big star is the lighting design and choreography by Joshie Harriette. Stacked LED lights form eight columns from the ceiling almost to the floor, surrounding the dancers like illuminated pillars in a sci-fi space. Later, each light rotates to various angles rather than hanging vertically, opening up endless atmospheres and playing with the visibility and invisibility of the dancers’ bodies. Clear and versatile, the lighting works perfectly in tandem with the soundscape.
Not every scene connects equally with the theme of femininity. At times the piece feels more centred on queer club culture than on digging deeper into what femininity uniquely embodies. Femininity and queerness often feel interchangeable here, with moments of masculine energy too. Thus, the piece is perhaps more accurately an exploration of shifting queer, feminine and masculine energies, and everything in between.
As Ekleido’s first large-scale work, Femina is a breakthrough that pushes the sensory limits to the maximum without hesitation. It is intense and not meant for everyone, but definitely one for those looking for an enjoyable thrill ride.
Listings and ticket information can be found here
