BEAR WITH US
Workshops and installations
2023—24
BEAR WITH US is a project that I developed with a group of queer and neurodivergent artists. We want to be bears and share our bear passion. In workshops, experimental rituals and performances, we reflect on what it means to be a bear and enjoy improvised performances and filmmaking, with fun and silliness. Everyone has a different bear experience and perception, so sharing our diverse visions is a creative collective healing journey.
BEAR WITH US
Ritual/Party at Ugly Duck, London, Feb 2024
BEAR WITH US Invitation:
A ritual party to reconnect with our Inner Bear.
We’ll experiment together with multisensorial activation, bear breathing and vocalising, bear movement and expression. A mountain of teddy bears will volunteer to support and inspire our transformative journey, offering companionship, comfort, and softness.
We’ll inquire about the intimate moments of a bear life and the interconnections between all bears and non-bears beings. Bear Byuka, Bear Elisabetta, Bear Lavander, Bear Dani and Favorito will share their bear personal skills and thoughts, and are curious to know about yours. Bear Margaret will draw pictures of the evening, and you can too if you like. If you are a bear please join and bear with us.
We are a group of queers who want to be bears and share their bear passion.
Bear Elisabetta thinks bears are queer talismans: “Bears helped me to explore my identity and heal a collection of traumas related to solitude and alienation from society, through self-love and sensory activation. I come from a materialistic society where even religion has a fetish attachment to objects. I am interested in the magic powers that inanimate objects can achieve through our spells.”
Bear Lavander similarly sees bears as talismans of care and connection to our own and others' inner worlds.
Bear Dani is interested in bears because they are interested in all non-human people, living, animated, or imagined: “I am quickly losing track of the imposed (false) boundary between the three. Woof woof grrrrrrrr quack.”
Bear Margaret, as an experienced performer, is keen on playing with collective imagination and gives life to little bears, with an instinct for fun and silliness.
Favorito: “I am a fabulous bear.”
We care about your bear experience too. We love that everyone has a different bear experience and perception. We think the mix is a creative journey itself.
BEAR STAFF
Bear Elisabetta (she/they) teddy bear talent agent.
Bear Margaret (she/her they/them), teddy bear fashion icon, portrait artist and choreographer.
Bear Dani (every pronoun) wild bear muse and hag.
Bear Lavander (every pronoun) bear body and breath worker.
Favorito (every pronoun) Elisabetta's favourite bear and project manager.
Byuka (they/them) Witch, Lunarrr Playgroundz curator, bears enchanter.
A HEALING OPERA
Performance/Workshop with Margaret Leppard and Taranta Lanera.
L’Inconnue, Bordeaux, FR. Sept 2023
This event in France was the first experiment of a bear workshop, and took the name from my film A Healing Opera, my first professional collaboration with teddy bears. The primary goal of this workshop was to heal both the new theater space and its audience in celebration of its opening event.
1 MIN TEASER:
Video and photos by Lucas Berthoumieu
Healing Opera workshop invitation:
The creative project A Healing Opera was born during the pandemic to Elisabetta's desire to heal feelings related to solitude and create a safe place to mourn. In collaboration with the musician Taranta Lanera and a group of experienced teddy bears, Elisabetta will invite the audience to participate in a collective ritual of purification, care and tenderness. Together we'll try to activate the healing power of touch and synesthetic sensorial stimulation.
A deep tactile experience can alter the assumed contours of the body, the distinction between body and world, between self and other. Experiencing synesthetic sensations is like becoming the oxygen of another being, human or non-human. Our healing and transformation will impact the new theatre space and all beings we are interconnected with.
AS I LOVE BEARS
I can rely on a generous group of very soft bears to spread around our bear thoughts.
