Can you break free from discomfort and shame around physical pleasure? Melyn Chow explores this with Shaking Shame: an intimate, physical performance that examines the connection between shame, pleasure and liberation.
Shaking shame puts you in the middle of a landscape of shaking, distorting bodies. Sacred and promiscuous, playful and dangerous. With the audience’s eyes on them, five performers attempt to transform shame and awareness of their bodies into a powerful, liberating movement in which the boundaries between the sensual, sexual and mundane slowly blur.
Shame is inexorably linked to our relationship to others: what opinions, projections or internalised judgments might someone have about you? In the audience’s presence, the players try to shake off these projections and the shame that flows from them to make room for a more sincere exchange with each other.
Winner VSCD Mime/Performance Prize 2025
credits
CONCEPT & DIRECTION Melyn Chow
IN COLLABORATION WITH PERFORMERS Melyn Chow, Estela Canal Parejo, Rita Bifulco, Sjaid Foncé, Ashley Ho
SOUND DESIGN Maoyi Qiu
SCENOGRAPHY Lena Michel van Drie
LIGHT DESIGN Minna Tiikkainen
DRAMATURGY Renée Copraij
MENTOR Floor van Leeuwen
VOICE AND SPACEHOLDER Leela May Stockholm
GRATITUDE AND LOVE TO Audre Lorde, Sarah Ringoet, Jela Nieuwstraten, Merette van Hijfte, Jing Hong Okorn-Kuo, Marijn de Langen, Kim Zeevalk, Mime Opleiding
Lena Michel van Drie 