Deborah Leiser-Moore (AUS): My body, my country

Inspired by the character O in The Story of O – who undergoes manipulations, piercing, brandings (and more) in a quest for love and acceptance – My Body My Country is a highly personal and active exploration of perceptions of Women and Beauty. The female form is “bared “: it’s a proud body of a certain age, marked with traces of natural and medical transformations and perceived “imperfections“. Audience members are given tools and invited to join in a body mapping dialogue that delicately treads the razor’s edge of intimacy and desire.

Deborah Leiser Moore is a performance maker and director whose bold, highly visual and physical works use multiple theatrical languages to investigate culture, memory and contemporary issues. Her work has been critically acclaimed and nominated for awards. Deborah has studied in Japan with Tadashi Suzuki and has created a successful pedagogy for performance and teaching. Deborah was a regular sessional lecturer for many years at La Trobe University, University of Western Sydney and University of Wollongong. She has also been invited to lead workshops at Monash University, Victoria University, NIDA, Beit Zvi in Tel Aviv, Aristotle University, Greece and in New Zealand. Deborah is presently an artist in residency at Footscray Community Arts Centre. She completed a Masters in Performance at Victoria University with ‘Here and There – Then and Now’, a video/installation/performance work looking at wedding rituals of Jewish and Muslim women. She is now in the final stages of her PHD at La Trobe University.