She’s Only Sleeping, 2018
Performance
Florence Dance Center, Florence, Italy

Original performance 10:15
Video excerpt 2:07

She’s Only Sleeping is a feminist adaptation of the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale. In it, Sykes directs a Jungian rendering of the narrative where a young woman grapples with waking herself from the underworld of the unconscious. As she awakens to her desires, she sheds the condition that she has internalized regarding what it means to be a woman in patriarchal culture. In a dream-like state, the woman is accompanied by her anima and animus, represented by two dancers fluidly moving between masculine and feminine archetypes. As she explores their meanings, she undertakes her own dance with struggle, sorrow, grace, joy, and freedom in order to heal the fissures within herself. 


Concept and direction: Ginny Sykes
Choreographed in collaboration with Lyona Kim, Kyriaki Petrou, and Idi Nazaydin  
Performers: Lyona Kim, Kyriaki Petrou, Idi Nazaydin
Music: Victor Sanders
Voice: Ginny Sykes
Set design: Ginny Sykes, Luigi Montefoschi
Costume design: Ginny Sykes
Camera: Luigi Montefoschi
Video Editing: Ginny Sykes, Luigi Montefoschi