20 minutes, December 2026. Musrara Mix Festival.
When We Were Almost Just a Form is a short performance, a miniature puppet theater for body parts.
My body parts, viewed from the outside, could resemble those of any woman, of course, if we can agree to ignore the specific identifying marks. If we do, we can pretend together that my body parts are our body parts, gathered around the microphones in the school studio, to deliver their message. For a long time now, we have been rushing our bodies from place to place, from one existential state to another: from bed to shelter, from brooding to migration, from sleeping to drinking, heavy guilt, anxiety, contraction, and ecstasy. This is an attempt to notice what holds us, what guides us on two legs, reaches out to gulp a glass of cold water, produces hungry rumbles from the stomach, quickens the breath, dampens with sweat, creates oppressive lumps of stone in the throat, makes children, makes the heart leap in terror, slides tears from the eyes, and on and on—infinite actions, infinite delicacies.
It is an attempt to imagine a voice and a gaze for the entities that compose our bodies as having an independent consciousness, as if separated from the individual identities we hold, yet remaining so close. Perhaps, in some way, they maintain a certain objectivity over the human, absolutely accepting their fate and striving only for organic balance, to simply perform their duty.
Creator: Daniela Lila | Music and production: Yoyo Broid | Performer: Daniela Lila | Texts, video and costumes: Daniela Lila | Artistic accompaniment: Ana Wild