Medusa Shaved is a collaborative performative piece with poetry by Klara du Plessis, music composition by Isis Giraldo, and dance choreography by Nada Wood. Thematically, Medusa Shaved engages with aesthetic hair removal, elevating one tiny aspect of the contemporary woman's everyday experience to a sublime act, reviewing, critiquing, and positively transforming ambivalent responses to it. On the one hand, the hairless body becomes stark, flat, a static blank canvas; on the other hand, the removed hair is woven into movement, a dance, a script of creative expression. As mythical background stands Medusa, the woman with snakes instead of hair; both empowered and disempowered by her hair. Formally, Medusa Shaved supplements poetry with dramatic effects to step into the gap between the poetry reading and theatre genres.

Poetry: Klara du Plessis
Composition: Isis Giraldo
Dance: Nada Wood
Second dancer: Emma Lee Iversen
Percussion: Kai Basanta
Cello: Jane Chan
Electronics: Simon Labbé
Electronics: Phil Melanson

Film: Leigh Gillam

Performed at La Poêle, Montreal, 3 December 2013
Performed at Mile End Poets’ Festival, Mainline Theatre, Montreal, 6 April 2014