Sancta

Florentina Holzinger is one of the most exciting theatre makers of the moment. Her trademark: groundbreaking performances with a strong show component that shed a feminist light on canonical works and social norms. In SANCTA she tackles the opera genre. She starts from Paul Hindemith's Sancta Susanna from 1922, a scandalous piece about a nun who cannot hide her sexuality while praying and is punished for it. Holzinger combines the opera with liturgical music, pop and metal, and thus arrives at a radically new 'mass celebration', in which she and her performers reclaim and redefine the pain, shame and guilt that women in the Catholic tradition have suffered. SANCTA is a theatrical statement about spiritual and sexual liberation, about female power and connectedness. Above all, the performance is an ecstatic celebration in which conventions may be thrown overboard – and nuns may sing happily on roller skates.