SEXODUS
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.
Duration 90 minutes
Genre Theatre
Language English
As long as i live, i will be aging. My only other option is to die
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 center.
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).
Credits
concept, text, performance Naomi Velissariou
direction Nicole Beutler
sound design, composition Jimi Zoet
set, lighting, video Marijn Alexander de Jong-|-
text, dramaturgy Bregje Hofstede
costume design Ülkühan Akgül
SEXODUS is a production of Theater Utrecht in co-production with URLAND, Nicole Beutler Projects and O Festival.
