JUICE

Hello.

You can leave your things over there.

Please uncover the bottom.

Put your legs on here. And slide forward a bit. Very good.

Now, this might feel a little cold.

„FACTS! AMAZING FACTS!“ headlines a leaflet from 1820, describing a „first rate phaenomena“: 19-year-old Mademoiselle Lefort, described as a „magnet of irresistible attraction, in whom the sexes are equally blended“ will be exhibited for the first time in England. In her, „feminine beauty“ is said to merge with „beard, mustachioes and whiskers“. After this exhibition, Mademoiselle Lefort starts off her international career, she travels through Europe and lives a largely independent life. What Lefort felt at the time is unknown. The way her hody has been studied and looked upon by doctors, has been meticulously documented.

In 2024, the University Hospital of Heidelberg lists intersex as a disease and advises: “Surgery is necessary in the vast majority of cases.” Surgery would nowadays make it possible “for the external genitalia to look normal – either like a girl’s or like a boy’s“.

In the two-hundred years between these events, medical science will go from declaring inter* people from a biological sensation to an anatomical impossibility. Evaluation by evaluation, the existence of inter* people is dissected, examined, judged and, finally, rendered impossible.

JUICE confronts the categorization of hermaphroditic, illegible and disobedient bodies. The performer River Roux enters a transparent space. Whether museum, strip club or observatory, the gazes directed at her oscillate between desire and disgust, between attraction and shame. Roux examines the fascination with bodies in-between: What is a ‘natural’ body, what is an insurgent body? And who is allowed to exist beyond fetishization?

Performance in English

Note: Terms such as “hermaphrodite” are now only used as self-designations or in a historical context. Most inter people describe themselves as “inter”, “intersex” or ‚intersexed‘.

River Roux is a performance artist and theater maker. Until recently she could be seen in Lola Arias’ Happy Nights, produced at Theater Bremen. River Roux studied photography at the University of Brighton in England. From 2021 to 2023, River was part of the Berlin Strippers Collective. During this time, they created Merry Stripmas (It Only Takes One) for Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, as well as feminist interventions and nightlife performances for Tag der Clubkultur and WHOLE Festival, among others. River is currently performing in A Stripper’s Closet at Theaterschiff Heilbronn. River has worked in over ten professions, as a stripper and carpenter, and addresses the connections between work, care, gender and sex in her work. In the 2024/25 season, JUICE will show at Theaterschiff Heilbronn and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. River has been accepted into the MA DAS Theater at the Amsterdam University of the Arts.

A co-production of Theaterschiff Heilbronn, Tacheles and Tarantismus and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. The project is made possible by Baden-Württemberg Stiftung and the project funding of Landesverband Freie Tanz- und Theaterschaffende Baden-Württemberg (LaFT BW) e.V. LaFT BW e.V. is funded by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts.