“Operators” by Amina Szecsödy looks to pervert the roles of female telephone operators active throughout Europe and North America from the late 1800 to 1970’s. The work takes its cue from the mechanized, feminized voices of comfort, control and direction that continue to play a massive role in choreographing the private and public today, from the dulcet tones of necro-capitalism to the weather forecast. These voices without bodies and the spit filled mouths that generate them. Who do these distant, garbled voices on the other end line belong to? Who maintains these split subjectivities? What is the significance of that wavery unstable hum that bears an alarming resemblance to heavy breathing? Szecsödy’s work functions as a subterranean switchboard, connecting women and their disembodied voices across time and space. “Operators” probes the human aspects of these disembodied voices, working backwards to propose mutant hosts.
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Concept, text, direction: Amina Szecsödy
With: Amina Szecsödy, Gry Tingskog, Katja Cheraneva
Dramaturgy: Anneliese Ostertag
Artistic advice: Lena Appel
Costume: Laura Stellaci
Music: Maya Lourenço
Light: Gry Tingskog
Technical assistance: Eoghan Ryan
Thanks to: Nina Nadig, Livia Andrea Piazza, Chloe Chignell, Andrea Szecsödy, Eoghan Ryan, Luis Garay, Bojana Kunst, Mikael Al Safandi & Rose Beermann.
A production by Amina Szecsödy, in co-production with Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and the Master program Choreography and Performance at the Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen and the Hessischen Theaterakademie, with the kind support of Kulturamt Frankfurt am Main and Fonds Darstellende Künste.