Leatherhard, a performance by Isabel Cordeiro

Join us for a new, work-in-progress performance by Isabel Cordeiro in collaboration with Catarina Ferreira da Silva. We are happy to support them and proud to host the upcoming performance Leatherhard. Experience it firsthand on Tuesday, September 16, the performance begins at 7 pm sharp!

Leatherhard refers to a threshold state, when clay allows to be shaped — firmer than viscous but not yet brittle. It is a moment of optimal plasticity, suspended between pliability and resistance. In this interval, clay invites transformation. A gesture of reciprocity, where flesh bodies and clay bodies meet.

This moment is sensed through touch: a sensibility to the moisture within the material and the surrounding environment, the attunement to the hydrophilic nature (water loving) clay bodies and our bodies share. The work-in-progress performance explores the transformation of clay and how bodies transform with it, through encounters with clay in its soft-wet and hard-fired states, acknowledging how the agency of the material evades scripting attempts.

The piece also exposes the failure of language to grasp what only touch knows, unpacking the very term ‘leatherhard’ through the materiality of clay and the embodiment of voice and text. Last, the work nods to the 17th-century scientist Margaret Cavendish, for whom bodies emerge from matter in motion, shaped by the rhythms of sympathy and antipathy.

Afterwards, there will be an opportunity to enjoy a drink (on your own expense) together at Café Laurierboom (1 min. walking).

Credits:

Concept: Isabel Cordeiro

Developed by: Isabel Cordeiro in collaboration with Catarina Ferreira da Silva

Performed by: Isabel Cordeiro, Catarina Ferreira da Silva and Mariska van den Berg

Rigging: Roan Lo-a-Njoe

Text: Isabel Cordeiro

With the support of: Amsterdams Fonds Voor de Kunst

In addition: porcelain slabs made at the EKWC European Ceramic Work Centre, ropes made at the Textile Museum, TextileLab-Passementerie