Résumé

In the following text we propose to think about how the creative methodology of an artistic project, of a hybrid nature, between film and performance, dialogues with the problems of autobiography and feminist theories. In support of the thesis that feminist performances identify a strong echo of autobiographical expressions, we analyse the film Nether Ballerina of Rottingdam (Demetri Estdelacropolis, 2005-2007) as a process of (re)creation and affirmation of the feminine
We browse Bergson’s theories to work on the processes of memory in the field of philosophy; we quote, among others, Philippe Lejeune and Paul De Man to contextualize the history and relevance of biographical and autobiographical writing. Then we address the feminist movement that has provided, since the early 1970s, fertile ground for the production of performative work of a feminist nature, committed to the private and public experience of women (Carlson, 2004). By correlating autobiographical creation to the new waves of feminist theory, we intend to focus in particular on those aspects of autobiography which cross with gender issues. In the film under analysis, the dancer intends to emancipate herself from the status of muse of the filmmaker and move into the role of director, taking over the material documented by Estdelacropolis, by making the film Nether Ballerina. By reconverting the body in movement into image in movement, the ephemeral into perennial, she rescues a new narrative for her representation. Michel Foucault, Judith Butler and Donna Haraway are the authors contemplated to articulate this idea.