RACHAEL MAUNEYGRACELESS

How can I understand myself to be homosexual

If I don't understand I have a sexuality to begin with

I am haunted by stories of our silence

I am haunted by the feeling of conquering

Conquering being something that you are not, to avoid the violence of being what you are

But there is violence anyways

GRACELESS is a story of resilience, of refusing to dissociate the body from its history, a sexual battleground, a queer refuge. GRACELESS is the story of a non conforming body, a queer body, a lesbian body, a southern body, a rural body, a rejected body. GRACELESS is the story of growing up as a gender non conforming lesbian in a small town in the american south.

This autobiographical solo performance explores the erotic nature of emancipation. It places my history back onto my body, and asks how it still feels, what it still means, what has transformed, what has been abolished. 

_{Photo credit: Telmo Branco/ Editing: Rachael Mauney}

Rachael Mauney (they/them) is a queer performance maker, writer, and activist based in Lisbon. Born in North Carolina, they spent the first 22 years of their life in the southern united states, and their work is heavily influenced by the intersection of their cultural upbringing with their queer identity. Rachael develops interdisciplinary performance through their practice "The Archaeological Body", an interbiographical approach to queerness, political protest, and the abolition of god, patriarchy, and colonial oppression. Their work has been shown in North Carolina, Washington DC, Seattle, Stockholm, Athens, NYC, Lisbon, Münich, and Berlin. They have received support from Dachverband Tanz Deutschland, National Performance Netz, Joint Adventures, the Goethe Institut, Fonds Darstellende der Künste, Polo Cultural das Gaivotas, Cie. Olga Roriz, Estudios Victor Cordon, Initiativ Luna Park, #share AckerStadtPalast, Hosek Contemporary, and Cordillera Berlin ́s AIR. As a guest performer, they have performed at such venues as Jacob ́s Pillow, American Dance Festival, Ailey Citigroup Theater, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, Dance Place DC, the Kennedy Center, Dock 11 Berlin, Uferstudios Berlin, Underground Theater Athens, among others. In addition to their performance practice, Rachael organizes the political project "Amplify: Queer Solidarity in Performance". This project fairly compensates local queer performers, while raising financial aid for LGBTQIA+ asylum seekers in Afghanistan and Iran.