Together with four performers from M STUDIO, we created a laboratory of individual ‘embarrassing performances’. Each of the artists developed their own stage alter ego and a set of actions and gestures balancing on the border between shame, ridicule and pleasure. A key element of the process was working with the category of guilty pleasure – understood not as pop culture entertainment, but as a practice of crossing social barriers and testing the limits of comfort. We tested what happens when pleasure is no longer burdened with guilt.

The performance explores the political potential of embarrassing performance – as a strategy of resistance against social expectations, norms and pressure. We are interested in whether voluntarily transgressing the boundaries of ‘good taste’ and convention can result in a new quality of presence – one that is more authentic, physical and sensitive to one's own emotions. In this sense, Dirty Dancing is not a performance for intellectual analysis from a safe distance. It is an event that engages the viewer on a physical and emotional level, inviting them to empathise, share embarrassment and laugh together.

It is also a proposal – risky but sincere – to treat one's own embarrassment as a gateway to freedom.

concept, direction, set design – Eryk Makohon

choreography – Eryk Makohon and the actors and actresses

dramaturgy – Daria Kubisiak

assistant director and choreographer – Paweł Łyskawa

cast: Eszter Nagy, Emília Polgár, László Szekrényes, Zoltán Deák

text – Eszter Nagy, Daria Kubisiak

costumes – Zsuzsi Szöke

music – collage

lighting – Huba Szabó

sound – György Chiriţescu