In 2023, Johanna Robyn created Appetite for the Depths, a piece performed with two other dancers at the Arsenic in Lausanne, the Théâtre les Halles in Sierre, and the KLAP Maison pour la danse in Marseille. This is Johanna’s first major work to be presented in an institution, and to include people other than herself.

In 2020, Johanna begins a process of transition. It is from this personal story, struggling against a body imposed by biology and the desire to come together, that this creation is born. Like a dive into oneself, Appetite for the Depths choreographs the sensual journey of a vibrant body in motion, never frozen. Appetite for the Depths uses a gestural vocabulary derived from the subversive dances of invisibilized minorities, whose bodies are in urgent need of expression.

By creating a safe space away from oppressive behavior, bodies can finally allow themselves to be what they feel, in a world where possibilities that don’t conform to the accepted norm can flourish. In this way, the three performers reinvent their own imaginations to reappropriate a trans mythology and give birth to new fictions in which they can find themselves, rise up and resist.

In Appetite for the Depths, another space-time is created, in which the performers are fully in charge. The audience is invited to enter a world that does not belong to them. They take part in the dancers’ fantasies, bearing witness to their dream worlds.

The work has evolved with the performers. It’s a living material that becomes embodied in them as they themselves become embodied.

by Johanna Robyn

Cast