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#Electra Goes to #Techno, by Xana Novais, proposes a body receiving electric shocks produced by the vibration of a dismembered set of drums. The skin dances not of its own accord but because the sound makes it move. The body moves through stimuli, available for movements in response to what surrounds it and to the words invoked by Electra.

What dances arise in the involuntary search for a body that starts moving again after the world comes to a complete stop during a pandemic situation? What gestures arise in the voluntary search of revisiting a classic?

It is a manifestation made by a single person, where the body is sacrificed by entering a state of trance for the sake of their desire to be reborn from painful situations, from muscles in tension, and, finally, for the sake of their art.

#Electra Goes to #Techno shows that a dancer's body has memory but that it also forgets, that a body gets tired of the lack of social stimuli and, above all, that it can die if it doesn't have discipline and control over itself.

Electra is or is not considered a complex. Electra is or isn't in love with her father. Whether or not Electra hates her brother. Electra is rarely performed in contemporary theater, perhaps because she is a sad woman, a woman who has little electricity. Electra cries too much, Electra is too dramatic and turns tears into rivers. Electra goes to Techno and discovers something. Electra is unpredictable like vibration, like energy, like techno. Just as a classic can be rewritten in such a way that Electra can be happy, hysterical and futuristic. It's complex to be Electra in 2025.

© Mário Negrão
© Mário Negrão
© Mário Negrão

Credits

Creation and Interpretation
Xana Novais

Assistant Director and Interpretation
Maurícia Barreira Neves

Interpretation and Drums
João Valinho

Interpretation and Electronics 
Diogo Melo

Special Participation
Gracinda Rebolo, João Leonardo Guerra (2023 e 2025), Amanda Bailey (2024), Tatiana Rocha

DJ Set
DJ Saliva

Light Design and Operation
Lui L’Abbate

Sound Design and Operation
José Afonso Monteiro

Executive Production
Tatiana Rocha

Production Assistant
Francisca Cardoso

Photography (2023)
Mário Negrão

Video (2023)
Aura de Fonseca

Video, Photography and Special Participation (2024)
Rita Soeiro

Residency Support 
CAMPUS - Paulo Cunha e Silva

Production
V.E.R.M.E.

Co-production
Fundação de Serralves

Management
Org.I.A. - Organização, Investigação e Artes & C.O.I.S.A.S. - Coletivo Opcional de Intervenções Sem Arte Súbtil

Sponsorship
MEDIKA Tecnologia Medicinal, Via Doze Espinho

Support
Self-Mistake (Câmara Municipal de Lisboa – Cultura e República Portuguesa - Cultura I DGARTES – Direção-Geral das Artes), Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Project funded by República Portuguesa - Cultura I DGARTES – Direção-Geral das Artes

Acknowledgments
André de Campos, Ângela Cardoso, Márcio Silva, Mafalda Jacinto, Tânia Guerreiro e Alexandra Carvalho

Xana Novais

Xana Novais was born in Porto in 1995 and works as a transdisciplinary artistic director and performer. She graduated in Theater in 2013 from the Escola Profissional Balleteatro do Porto and later completed the FAICC dance course at Companhia Instável. Highlights of her career include performing in works by Pedro Zegre Penim, Teatro Praga, Hugo Calhim Cristovão and Joana Von Mayer Trindade, João Pedro Vale and Nuno Alexandre Ferreira, Estrutura, and Carlota Canto Lagido.

Since 2017, she has collaborated with artist Florentina Holzinger on works such as Apollon, A Divine Comedy, Ophelias Got Talent, and Sancta. In 2019, she played the lead role in Dolores, a series by Tota Alves (RTPlay). She is the creator and author of the performances (VS) POPCORN, Un Teknè, (G) Dysphoria APP, and co-created One Way to Pandora with photographer Diogo Bessa. In 2022, she premiered the piece How to Kill Naked Women at Teatro Municipal do Porto, and in 2023, she presented the durational performance Ao Que Isto Chegou... and #Electra vai ao #Techno.

In her creative work, research, and performances, she uses her own body to explore and question the boundaries of the artwork and the intersections between fiction and reality.