Work Body

What it’s about

“Work Body” draws its inspiration from Pier Paolo Pasolini’s poem “Le ceneri di Gramsci” (The Ashes of Gramsci). Pasolini dedicated these lines to the Marxist thinker and co-founder of the Italian Communist Party, Antonio Gramsci—who, just like choreographer Michael Turinsky himself, lived with a physical disability. Turinsky uses this sensual-intellectual homage to find an artistic response to the current shift to the right in working-class circles and the associated fantasies of masculinity. At the center is Gramsci’s concept of “buon senso”: the authentic core of the working class experience.

Why you should go

How do political convictions and personal desire intersect? And what becomes of the desire for community in a world that commodifies everything? Turinsky responds with dance, song, and movement. On stage, work and play, choreography and concert, politics and performance merge. “Work Body” invites you to re-experience camaraderie, desire, and resistance.

Pssst!

Michael Turinsky is one of the most influential voices in contemporary dance and the disability arts scene. In his work, he combines philosophical rigor with intense physical presence. “Work Body” is not just a performance, but a passionate plea for an aesthetic of resistance that understands the disabled body as a powerful political subject.