MONGA

“This is not a freak show!” cries Jéssica Teixeira in this riveting punk performance. “Monga” is a classic circus horror sideshow in Brazil, where a beautiful young woman in a cage transforms into a gorilla, and escapes her cage to attack the audience. The illusion developed out of the life-story of Julia Pastrana, an indigenous Mexican singer and dancer with hypertrichosis, who was exhibited as an “ape woman” in 19th Century freak shows across the Americas and Europe.  

At once warm and confronting, Teixeira is blisteringly vulnerable, using her own “strange” body as a comparative canvas to write a feminist manifesto. This award-winning solo show is cabaret, it’s poetry, it’s satire and biting critique. Yes, she performs naked, and as she does, she strips away the colonial fetishisation baked into mainstream culture.  

Expect to be transfixed by this sharp, tender work – expect music and dance, expect a rambunctiously alive and brilliant woman telling you a story of humanity, our beauty and brutality, expect a few shots of Cachaça. Here Teixeira masterfully creates a bubble of safety to be your most uninhibited self and challenge the cycle of violence against bodies deemed “other”.