Batty Bwoy is a solo performance in collaboration with Karoline Bakken Lund, Veronica Bruce, Jassem Hindi and Ring van Mobius.

Through a reappropriation of the Jamaican term “ Batty Bwoy” (litteraly, butt boy), slang for a queer person, the work twists and turns myths to invoke demonic sensitivities and charming cruelties, unfolding vulnerable possibilities in an interplay of consciousness and naivety. The horror and joy of Batty Bwoy, inherent to queer blackness, is unmasked. 

Scrutinizing the absurdity of a queer monstrosity, Batty Bwoy articulates the porosity of bodies and languages, their mouths swallowing and regurgitating the corporal fictions projected onto their skins.  

Batty Bwoy attacks and embraces sedimented narratives around the fear of the queer body as a perverse and deviant figure. The expression "Batty Bwoy" is used to evoke an ambivalent creature that exists in the threshold of the precarious body, liberated power, joy and batty energy!

The work has found inspiration in mythologies, disgusting stereotypes, feelings and fantasies of the queer body and identities, homophobic dancehall lyrics, 70s Giallo films from Italy, resilient “gully queens” and queer voices in Norway and Jamaica that have visited and taken part of the process.

The project is a co-production with Dansens Hus, Oslo and RAS, Sandnes and premiered January 20th, 2022. 

CHOREOGRAPHY/PERFORMER
Harald Beharie
SCENOGRAPHY/SCULPTURE
Karoline Bakken Lund and Veronica Bruce
MUSIC
Ring van Möbius 
SOUND DESIGNER 
Jassem Hindi 
OUTSIDE EYE 
Ines Belli and Hooman Sharifi 
CO-PRODUCERS
Dansens Hus and RAS
SUPPORTED BY
Norwegian Art council, Fond for lyd og bilde,FFUK, Sandnes Kommune and Tou Scene.
PHOTO
Julie Hrncirova (1) Margot Sparkes (2), Pietro Bertora (3) 

Thanks to Tobias Leira and Ingeborg Staxrud Olerud.

The project won the Hedda prize for best dance performance 2023 and was nominated for the Norwegian Critics Association Prize 2022. 







DATES

Upcoming: 

2024
ICE HOT, Oslo  14 & 15 Feburary 2024 
Skopje Pride 13 June 2024 

More dates tba

2023
Side Step Festival, Helsinki, Finland 09 -11 February
Donau Festival, Krems, Austria 28,29,30 April
MDT, Stockholm Sweden 05- 06 May
Spring Utrecht 26-27 May 
Dansens Hus, Oslo 23- 25 June 
Centrale Fies 02 July 
Santarcangelo Festival 15-16 July 
Impulstanz 24,25,26, 27th July 
Vitlycke 02. September
Arendal på Skeiva 08. September
Salmon Festival, Barcelona dates 16 -17 September 
Backslash Festival, Gessnerallee 25 - 26 November


2022 
Dansens Hus, Oslo 20 - 23. January 
RAS - Sandnes 17 February
Ice Hot, Helsinki (pitching session) 2 July 
Ravnedans, Kristiansand 07 July  
RAS, Sandnes - 28 August 
Teater Innlandet, Hamar 04 September
Rosendal Teater- Trondheim 29 -30 September
Oktoberdans - BIT Bergen 23 -24 October
Les Urbaines, Lausanne Switzerland 02-04 December






BATTY BWOY