Identity is a rumor, until death writes it down

Starting from a narrative of the self, hollowed out by intimate lacunae and the fractures of History, this solo unfolds as an unstable gallery of intimate and historical self-portraits. Between portraiture, history painting, fairy tale, vanitas, altarpiece, tableau vivant and missing archive, Identity is a rumor, until death writes it down opens a chamber of hauntings where painted, absent or lost bodies begin again to negotiate their apparition. Gradually unmoored from any assignable identity, these self-portrait-rumors stitch themselves together like fragments of a desired genealogy.

At the crossroads of visual art, poetry and choreography, Identity is a rumor, until death writes it down also scrutinizes our small daily deaths — those moments when identifying oneself amounts to dying to oneself — and reads within them the tensions between inheritance, desire, loss and relation, whispering differently what the title already murmurs: perhaps identity is only a rumor, until death, the archive or History attempts to write its form.

Co-presented with the Kunstfestivaldesarts in May 2027

CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY, PERFORMANCE, MUSIC, POETRY AND DRAMATURGY : Mackenzy Bergile
SCENOGRAPHY, STYLING AND COSTUMES : Mackenzy Bergile
SCENOGRAPHY — TECHNICAL FABRICATION : Vincent Gadras
ARCHIVE WRITER : Inès Mauricio, Mackenzy Bergile
STYLING AND TEXTILE DESIGN ADVISOR : Janette Laakso
LIGHTING DESIGN : Eduardo Abdala
PRODUCTION  AND TOURING : AMA brussels - France Morin, Clara Schmitt, Babacar Ba
STUDIO MANAGER : Muriel Babandisha