SEXODUS | Nicole Beutler Projects – ITA

What does it mean to be a woman in a world that constantly judges you on how you look? In SEXODUS, an actress stands on the threshold of her fortieth year, caught between expectation and resistance. In an explosive mix of performance, video and music, she explores how a female body is shaped by the gaze, industry and history. What begins as adaptation grows into a radical break with the system that formed her.

As long as I live, I will be aging. My only other option is to die

Date: September 18, 2026 - September 19, 2026
Duration: 90 min, no interval
Genre: Music theatre
Taal: English

In SEXODUS, we follow an actress who knows that, in the Western world, she is expected to look twenty-four until the age of sixty. She keeps adapting to a system that thrives on female insecurity, until the pressure begins to crack. What starts as compliance slowly turns into resistance. In a physical and musical revenge fantasy, she uses the tools of art, entertainment, and social media to strike back.

SEXODUS is an intense and explosive theatrical experience in which Naomi Velissariou transforms into a multitude of female archetypes.

Under the direction of Nicole Beutler, body, text, music, and image collide in a layered theatrical landscape. The sharp writing of Velissariou and Bregje Hofstede is amplified by the sound design and visual interventions of URLAND. Together with costumes by artist Ülkühan Akgül, they create a theatrical world that is at once raw, seductive, and confrontational.

The result is a “one woman show” that constantly changes form, just like the body at its centre.

Scène uit SEXODUS: een danseres buigt diep voorover met het haar over haar gezicht, in een wijde donkergroene broek en zware zwarte laarzen, op een blauw verlichte vloer.

Scène uit SEXODUS: een danseres springt met gespreide benen door de lucht in een glanzend korset en hoge laarzen; op de vloer eronder buigt een tweede danseres achterover. Rechts staan filmlampen op statieven.

About Naomi Velissariou

Naomi Velissariou is a Greek-Belgian director, writer, actor and performance artist. In her work she explores the fluidity of identity and how it is shaped by contemporary visual culture.

She creates poetic and confrontational performances in which text, music and image merge into an intense theatrical language. Her work is both personal and political and focuses on the mechanisms behind shame, desire and representation.

Velissariou received, among others, the Charlotte Köhler Prize (2017), the Directing Prize (2019), the Theo d’Or (2021) and a nomination for the VSCD Mime/Performance Prize (2025).