Residency postponed until a later date.

The young artist Penelope Morout will be at PARC for a residency in which she will continue her research on her project H.I.I.T. (High-Intensity Identity Training): Strategies of self-awareness in a world of consumption.

H.I.I.T., that will take the form of solo dance performance, is an artistic and physical investigation of subverting the established preconceptions placed on the body by the social construct and of reclaiming the agency of our body, our identity, while sharing a common space. With the advent of internet and virtual reality, the sense of belonging, of physically connecting to one another is often lost. In order to reconfigure the way of living – not only surviving – in a world, where body-image standards that promote effectiveness and production are signifiers of success, health and happiness, we need to redefine who we are, what choices we make and for what reason, to acknowledge our potentialities, our strengths as well as our limitations, and claim back agency of our body, our existence in time and space.

In this solo performance, I intend to expose myself on stage and invite audience to engage into a personal journey of transformation. Taking the form of a ritual, H.I.I.T. will symbolically approach the concept of a ‘rite of passage’, in order to bring forth the potentiality of carrying more than one identities in one finite body. Appropriating the three phases of a rite of passage, the separation, the liminality and the incorporation, I intend to push my body to the limits, to create spatial and temporal constraints, in order to investigate how and why can my body be modified through physical persistence and endurance, and to explore a physicality in-between recognition and cognition.
H.I.I.T. stems from my personal struggle to conform to the social and cultural stereotypes, while dealing with traumatic events in my life. As a woman, coming from an environment where tradition, religion, family were inextricably connected, I have always had to conform to a specific set of rules and was primed to accept and endure certain situations. As a dancer, my body is my only way of fully expressing all the aspects of my identity. My intention is, through this performance, to comment on the commodification of identity when connected with body-image standards promoted through social media and to create space for the audience to problematize and create there own associations in regards to the matter at stake.
Penelope Morout

Penelope Morout is a cross-disciplinary artist, passionate about art as a means of communication. After having graduated from the Greek National School of Dance in Athens and from the National Technical University of Athens – School of Architecture, she is interested in the intersection between these two fields of expertise, and uses drawing, dancing, crafting, filming as her expressive tools for creating performances and installations. She has been also working in the field of theatre, as a performer (Juxtapoz Dance Company / opera Alcestes 2015, Kostas Fillipoglou / ancient tragedy Prometheus Bound 2015, So7 Company / Friday Night, Game Night 2016), as well as a director, choreographer and set designer (Folie à Deux / director-choreographer – 2019, Ψ / choreographer-set designer, 2020). She is also involved in art – activist initiatives, such as T.E.P. | The Elephant Project, a collaboration with choreographer Christina Mastori, which was presented in COME TOGETHER #4 Festival in Amsterdam in February 2019.
She is currently in her final year of studies in the Master Theatre Practices in ArtEZ University of the Arts in Holland. During this period, she is in the process of creating her new solo dance piece HIIT | High-Intensity Identity Training, which will premiere in May 2020 in Arnhem.