Medusa is Laughing • Studio STUK

In the frame of the master programme at P.A.R.T.S. Tessa Hall (NZ) made a study of ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’ by the French femininist author Hélène Cixous. Through her literary genre coined as ‘écriture féminine’, Cixous challenged the conventional bounds of patriarchal language. Hall’s physical research of the text gave birth to a personage. She is Medusa. Like Cixous, Medusa wants to invent a language that encapsulates all female narratives. She moves in an impossibly inefficient, illogical and explosive way until another body arrives... or another. Medusa sabotages all reason.

Tessa Hall is originally from New Zealand. She joined the Training Cycle at P.A.R.T.S. in 2016 and the STUDIOS program in 2019. Tessa’s interests lead her to take on various roles from performer to writer, researcher, curator and organizer.
She has written various texts for Rosas, including a piece published for the 2020 revival of Drumming.

Tessa’s research has a feminist focus with particular interest in sexual difference philosophy. Her work is often about the voice of women—written and spoken, on paper and on the stage. This has led her to develop a platform called SHE talk that aims to make space for this.