Trauma Kink

Together with director Gabriel Sandu, the Giuvlipen theater company brings to the audience a courageous and innovative show about how childhood and adult traumas define our perception of intimacy and pleasure.

Synopsis

How much of our pleasure is kink and how much is trauma? How can we transform the histories of abuse, queer identities, and experiences of sexual consent, gathered over a lifetime, into a form of resistance?

Trauma Kink is a show about how childhood and adult traumas define our perception of intimacy and pleasure.

The show naturally opens the conversation about trauma, through the stories of five artists who reveal themselves to the audience in a performative approach that combines confessional elements with fiction and hedonistic imagination.

A show about trauma and hedonism, beyond dictionary definitions, but especially about the healing power of vulnerability.

Mihaela Dragan, co-founder of Giuvlipen

The text of the show was developed by artist Mihaela Drăgan and starts from the collective research carried out by the artistic team through participation in dramatic writing workshops, counseling sessions on body trauma, and workshops on kink and sexuality.

Thus was born a show about trauma and hedonism, beyond dictionary definitions, but especially about the healing power of vulnerability.

Along with the other productions of the Roma feminist theater company Giuvlipen, the show Trauma Kink supports the development of Roma theater in Romania, by expanding the repertoire and increasing the visibility of productions made by Roma actors, actresses and playwrights, as well as by addressing relevant themes for the Roma community and Romanian society in general.

"Trauma Kink is the show through which Giuvlipen returns to the stage after two years of pandemic that have marked our lives, mental health and the way we communicate and relate to each other. In crisis situations, violence and distance between us, people, increase. In Trauma Kink we felt the urgent need to open a conversation about sexual abuse and consent, about desire and limits, about the thin line that separates the victim from the abuser. About how the patriarchal societies we live in make us ashamed of our desires and pleasures. About who we really are, if trauma and sexuality define us as people.

As an author, I have tried to turn the personal experiences of the performers into fiction, including my own experience, the role of author being doubled by that of actress in this show. I did it in an attempt to understand our traumas and to seek healing through art. Ultimately, what other role can art have in emergency situations such as the one we are experiencing now, if not to comfort us and act as a balm on our wounds, those of the artists and the audience?”