SENITH

Senith, has been a queer drag performer, organiser of workshops and events, as well as a queer activist, for more than a decade. She co-founded Eyes Wild Drag, the Italian pioneer group in queer performance art. After the collaboration with the group in the organising of the initial editions of GendErotica festival, now Senith is GendErotica Art Director. Senith, who experiments with gender roles and erotic imaginaries, embodies the very first critical performing construction of a Faux Queen in Italy, through which she works on the redefinition of a queer collective imaginary of the femminine.

Senith’s work has captured the attention of both Italy’s national media (L’Espresso, Venerdì di Repubblica, Gioia, Tu Style, I viaggi di Nina, Rai4, Radio Popolare) and international media (Curve and Next Magazine - USA), on numerous occasions.

In 2012, together with the Eyes Wild Drag, she took part in a world tour, which saw her visiting several European cities and various places in the USA.

Senith’s main projects are: Drag Queer Sciò (Drag Queer Show), a female cabaret drag performance; SovverTango (SubversiveTango), a tango performance which combines the subversion of gender codes with role exchange in dance; Queerrida, a playful queer contest open to all forms of art, which revamps the joyful atmosphere of the drag clubs of the ’90’s in the USA; Il Lato Oscuro del Desiderio (The Dark Side of Desire), an installation performance, which explores eroticism and desire; Victoria Party, a performance party which actively engages the audience with the goal of ‘liberating the Drag Queen trapped in their vagina’; Victor/Victoria Workshop, an introductory workshop concerning basic notions of gender performativity.

On the occasion of GendErotica 2013, Senith organized the first Italian (and European) Femme Conference. This event saw the participation of numerous artists, activists and lecturers from all over the world.

In that same year, the festival was hosted by the Arte Fiera di Verona, (Verona Arts’ Fair), within the exhibition space provided by the London based association Cuntemporary.

The year 2015 saw the birth of Erotic Lunch; a performative lunch dedicated to the art of eroticism, which includes the participation of a variety of chefs and artists. The artistic concept and direction of this performative lunch was developed by Senith, who is also a leading performer in this event.

In 2016 Senith produced her first entirely solo performace entitled BAD ASSolo. That same year saw the presentation of the documentary entitled Al di là Dello Specchio (On the Other Side of the Mirror), directed by Cecilia Grasso and starring Senith. This documentary has been presented at many festivals in Italy and abroad, including countries such as the United States, Spain, Mexico and Argentina. Indeed, it won the Best Documentary Director Prize, at the Newark International Film Festival (USA).

2016 is a year of big changes: she creates her first solo, BAD ASSolo; in September 2016, Senith took part in the artistic production of La Luna in Folle, by Italian-Lebanese artist Adelita Husni-Bey, which was selected for the Premio Maxxi 2016 (Maxxi Prize 2016), in Rome. The video part of the project will be exposed at the Maxxi Museum in Rome until March 12th.

In 2017 the first studio of  Spruzzami, by Maura Gigliotti, borns and she continues her tour, performing also at Internationa Feminist Art Festival in Tunis, at Théatre National de Tunis, and in Zurich, London, Ljubljana.

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they say...

Delicious, carefully presented dishes, selected readings, artworks, flickers of theatre, collective and individual engagements will allow Senith, director, actress and author of this art project, and each and every one from the company - shared between stage and cuisine - to penetrate in you and help you sail towards arousing desire, up where the erotic and flavors will be all the same and everything will be trimmed to a single word: pleasure. (Salotto Erotico Italiano, April 2017)

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“Eyes Wild Drag brings a Euro sensibility to gender fluidity. These professional gender benders endow their performance with lush sensuality and rich humour. Think Dietrich, Joel Gray, mixed with a little Sophia Loren, and you get an idea of the heady, ironic sexuality they embody.” (Curve Magazine, USA, May 2015)

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“I learned a lot about gender performance in Rome while I was there over the summer with a wonderful group of drag kings and faux queens called Eyes Wild Drag. The event was called the GendErotica Festival and the Femme Conference. It was a really ambitious project and interesting because they’re grappling with femme and whether it can actually be radical to embrace femme or not. I actually think it’s fundamentally radical to embrace femme, and I’ve been trying to articulate this.” (interview to Fauxnique by AP Magazine, USA, October 2013)

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“Thank YOU! Thank you because you have done a great thing. Politically, artistically, culturally. Thank you for the energy that you put into it, for the enthusiasm and the passion. Thank you because on that stage (...) I felt proud and legitimised as a Femme. (...) Thank you for telling that Femme is explosive. I have been waiting to hearing this for years.” (A person attending GendErotica, 4 June 2013)

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“GendErotica 2013 (…) three days of cultural ferment” (Tu Style, 10 Giugno 2013)

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“Eyes Wild Drag not only performs but has created a community (...) an incredibly fabulous way to create a revolution” (Curve Magazine, USA, June 2012)

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Senith, famous italian FtoF, beautiful and enigmatic (Clubbing, January 2009)

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An intelligent, precise, well calibrated show. And very funny. Bravo. (LMT Magazine, December 2007)

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