Surfacing HypoKrisia by Charlie Laban Trier

Surfacing HypoKrisia is a series of performances and rituals that try to call in a speculative, myth-like figure.

Her name is HypoKrisia.

She is imagined by Charlie as the forgotten younger sister of Tiresias, the queer prophet from Greek mythology. Through her, the performance explores resilience and strength by following a figure that is both imagined and real in its effect.

According to the myth, Tiresias sees two snakes twisting together while mating. He is disturbed by what he does not understand and hits the female snake. Because of this, Hera, the wife of Zeus, turns him into a woman.

In this reimagined story, both Tiresias and HypoKrisia can be seen as trans figures. But HypoKrisia does not move toward a final form. She stays in-between. She chooses to exist in a state of being unfinished, always becoming.

In this imagined myth, she is seen as dangerous and not accepted, so she is erased from stories. She becomes like a snake: smooth, hard to grasp, always changing and shedding her skin.

The work is a wish to call her back up from below the surface, where she has been held for too long.

Bio

Charlie Laban Trier (b. 1987, dk) is a performing artist who chooses to situate his practice deep within the realm of dance, though the dances often appear through other forms such as; bottom-barrel yells turned into songs, text-sampling, endlessly becoming costume, carrying/caring for screens, extreme sculptural headbanging and more. He sees dance as inherently messy, slippery and emergent - a form of knowledge that resists legibility.

Living as a transperson, is another big teacher in his thinking/approach to work. Charlie thinks of transness, like dance, as a technology that helps him complicate material. It allows for embodying multiple images, seducing viewers, and shifting fluidly between forms.

He is currently investigating practices of collective myth-making, wanting to foster conversations that resist fixed meaning and invite a dis-positioning of the hero/center-stage.

He’s a member of Jakoozi (fka. Jacuzzi) since 2019 – an artist-run studio in Amsterdam where dance/performance and other time-based medias swim together – collectively organizing public events and workshops.

Credits:

Choreography & performer: Charlie Laban Trier

Dramaturgical partner: Noha Ramadan

Light designer: Angela X

RC-vehicle builder: Anders Toft Pedersen

RC-performer: TBA

Outside eye: Kai Merke

Music remix: Isadora Tomasi

Special thanks: Angelica Stathopoulos

Developed with support from:

HIMHERANDIT, Warehouse9 and Åbne Scene/Godsbanen – Queer Practice Residence 2025/26, HAUT – IN PROCESS residency, EHKÄ residency at Contemporary Art Space Kutomo, Performance space & PACT Sydney – Queer Development Program 2024, Museion Bolzano – Opening the pill symposium 2022, Arts Centre BUDA residency, Jakoozi Amsterdam.

Music in piece: Aamourocean, Britney Spears, Cascada & Maurice West, Chicane & Moya Brennan – The Thrillseekers remix, Forest Sword, Hole, ORM.

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