suspended body,
shared body
"Suspended Body, Shared Body," is a performative triptych by the aerial rope collective Less Kuerdas. Through the creation of shared and intimate spaces, the collective uses two experimental performance and one workshop to explore the role of bodies within public space. In this process, new perspectives emerge on community, spatial dynamics, and the relationship between art and democracy. The work invites audiences to engage in a visceral reflection on presence, support, and the act of being together.
PART 1: WORKSHOP - supporting body
The first part of the triptych is a workshop that explores how physical contact in the form of support can create shared and intimate spaces. Through performative experiments, participants investigate the role of bodies in public space, rethinking how we relate to one another and to our surroundings. By engaging in simple physical exercises rooted in presence, trust, and mutual care, the workshop invites a collective reflection on support both as a bodily action and as a social gesture.
PART 2: PERFORMANCE - shared body
In the second part of the triptych the bodies of the performers lie along a single rope that stretches across the room, creating a living line of interdependence. Through this precarious arrangement, risk and care are constantly negotiated with the participants holding the rope. Alongside this, voice becomes an extension of the body: long sustained notes are carried by both the singer and the performers. In this process, new perspectives emerge on how bodies can hold each other, where limits are drawn, and what is revealed when we dare to let go.
PART 3: PERFORMANCE - suspended body
The final part of the triptych immerses the audience in an intimate, contemplative space. Participants enter a room, lie on the floor, and look upward for 15 minutes. Above them, the horizontal bodies of the performers float, suspended in space. This precarious suspension builds a relationship of trust: risk becomes palpable, and with it, a deepened sense of shared humanity.
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By Joanne Rodriguez
suspended body, shared body was developed in 2025 as part of the exhibition cycle ‘Practices of Collective Grieving’, curated by Joanne Rodriguez, at Q18 Exhibition Space,
Quartier am Hafen (Cologne, Germany).
grieving How does a collective body grieve? In the context of Joanne Rodriguez's exhibition series Practices of Collective Grieving, the second exhibition format invites you to explore grief in a shared space—sensually, physically, and communally. The circus collective Less Kuerdas creates "shared and intimate spaces" and uses performative experiments to investigate the role of bodies in public space. In doing so, new perspectives emerge on community, spatial distribution, and the connection between art and democracy. Engage in a physical reflection on presence, support and collectivity.
event takes place in dialogue with the CircusDanceFestival, but operated independently within its own program.