Theater Workshop:
“Cities by Night”

The workshop carried out by Sardegna Teatro involved Valentina Medda, an interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on borders and the way women cross and explore them both physically and emotionally, in developing a participatory performance called Cities by Night, where women from different background, race and age, are invited to explore the streets of their own city, wandering alone when the sun sets, avoiding crossing the areas where they feel uncomfortable.

In March, several cis women, trans women and anyone who identified themselves as feminine (queer, non-binary, trans), of different ethnicities, ages and backgrounds, were invited by the artist to explore the city of Cagliari. Together they focused on exploring fears, prejudices and experiences all the women had in the district, how they perceived it, what strategies they put into place to feel more secure when walking through the streets at night and, on the other side, why they feel comfortable despite finding themselves alone in different times of the day or night.

Later on the objectives and structure of the performance were defined, the map of the city was redesigned to match each woman personal experience of the public space and the participants were trained on the walking rhythm to be maintained to respect the timing of the audio that each of the audience heard while walking behind them.