This metaperformance, almost a dance piece, was made at the time I was leaving one given identity, ”a dancer” (upon leaving dance schooll), and before taking another given identity, ”a theatre director” (when starting studies) at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, but always feeling like a ”performance artist”, and the general anxiety I always felt when I was aksed to define what it is that I do. I was interested in extreme body art practices and, at the same time, the magic trick that makes theatre. Dorothy Baskreville is a name I use as an internet pseudonym, so also an artifical identity.
The Autopsy explores the questions of extreme body practices through confession-like moments, agressive dance moments, and references to artistic practices of pioneers Hermann Nitsch, Marina Abramović, Orlan, etc.
It is, in a sense, a big lie. It seemingly very openly proposes the question of ”what is left in extreme body art”, when it really just questions what is left for a nineteen years old me to do to find a place in the art world divided by disciplines. In the end, it features a discussion with the audience wether or not the piece should be ended with a self-harming action, an action that was performed before the performance started and which left marks that were visible on my body, at the very moment as I appear to be thinking about it for the first time.
The piece was performed as a part of ”Pokretnica”, a festival of contemporary dance and performance in Novi Sad.
I was aksed many times to do it again, but it was created in a very specific moment of my life that I don’t think I can replicate.
