The question „How Can I Tell This To My Father?“ led me to reflect on the connection between human rights discriminations and the language to talk about them. One-sided words that makes a queer body to be a a wrong body; being trapped in a representation that is a child of a heteronormative and patriarchal system. Exploring my difficulty in phrasing my sexual orientation, I conducted an intimate case study, employing performative practices to open up alternative communicative methods. The research takes the final form of text, 30-minute performance and score.

The text is an assemblage of personal diaries, academic texts, international law and song lyrics. All following the structure of Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy.

INFERNO: Meeting Myself Halfway;
PARADISO: Meeting The Father Halfway;
PURGATORIO: Meeting My Father Halfway.

The performance is evolved around the action of breathing: activity that gradually gains resistance in the dance, which lead me to hum and finally utter sentences. As a house dancer, I discovered the innumerable communicative layers embedded in reality, which are unreachable when aiming for efficient communication. One day with no expectations, my father and I listened to music in silence, telling each other a lot. The emotions evoked by our interpretation of the lyrics were enough. We listened, we sensed, we felt together. We incorporated breath before speech, on a rhythm harmonized in our body.