Canan Yücel Pekiçten is a dance artist, choreographer and academic at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University State Conservatory Contemporary Dance Department in Istanbul.

She is guesting Gothenburg and 3:e Våningen for the second time, this time with her newest work, How to enjoy Ceylon Tea.

The last time she was here, she performed her work All about the Heart at 3:e Våningen,  a work in which, as part of her doctoral project, she offered an empowering metamorphosis to three female characters from famous operas that were originally created from a sexist point of view. The Queen of Der Zwerg Lied, Cio-Cio-San of Madame Butterfly, and Pohjan Neito, the title character from the first opera written in Finnish,  were given new and alternative lives through Canan’s unconventional take on the archaic stereotypes. 

Today Canan tells me about her new work, initially inspired by the opera The Pearl Fishers by Georges Bizet. In her research she quickly became aware of the multiple times tea was described whenever Ceylon was mentioned, and decided to shift her attention to create a reflection on the western perspective on the east and Ceylon Tea as a colonial product.  She is interested in the contrast of working with the material of a western classical opera piece while simultaneously questioning the historical ground on which it is built.

Canan explains that she has created some very specific practices for herself through the process of this work, in which she dunks white garments in tea, changing their color to get closer to the color of her skin.  A video installation of this practice is shown via a projection on the back wall during the performance, while the live action on the stage includes Canan transporting a teacup in arduous ways while a man is presenting tea and unsolicitedly serving it to the audience. She explains that this is a comment on what happened during the colonial era, that so-called civilization was proposed to the indigenous people despite nobody asking for it …