Snake/Woman

What is it like to shed one’s skin and enter a new world?

The snake knows the answer. From the Bible, to the folk tales of France to Greece to China, the snake slides along a common theme. She is a whisperer of desires to women. A shapeshifter who chooses to enters another world as an alien woman.

Snake/Woman is a journey of the snake shapeshifter as a divine migrant figure. We track her from her birth in the beginning of time, to her desire for agency, to her alien existence in a new home, her new love, to her eventual flight away.

This is told through the lens of classical singer and mover Vanessa Guinadi, a 4-time migrant.

Through song, movement and mime, from John Cage to Duparc to Duke Ellington, this 1hr performance uses interdisciplinarity, multi-genre and multi-lingual songs to speak to all who don’t belong anywhere.

—

This project has been developed in various stages at the John Cage Haus in Halberstadt, Salone dell’Opera in Amerongen, and MAPA in Haarlem. It will be developed further in a residency in Autumn 2026.

CREATIVE TEAM

Musicians: Irem Yunkus (Piano), Laurence Gaudreau (Cello)
Artistic coach & End-director: Ginette Puylaert
Choreographic advice: Hannah Badura, Yerim Anarika
Dramaturgy: Lin Xiangning & Meia Oei
Lighting design: TBC
Photographer: Alicia Karsoenopoero