DIVAS cultivate artistic exchange and kinship in the field of performing arts in order to find new ways of culture making and artistic production. DIVAS function as a multifold alter ego and give a creative framework for those who wanna share their light, their heat, their wetness. DIVAS questions artistic, social and political realms and transforms them from an embodied perspective.

DIVAS are not fixed, but ongoing since 2016. They are a permeable web for local artists in Zurich. They are an ever moving net, proposing structures that retrieves and restores what’s been driven past the margins. DIVAS are a portal opening, seeking connection and strength in plurality and difference. As all arts, DIVAS are embedded in relationships – always DIVAS, never a diva. DIVAS actively question notions of authorship, collaboration, participation and collectivity. DIVAS play, because paradox is not there to be resolved.

In 2024 DIVAS received support from the City and Kanton of Zürich to evolve their process-oriented collaborations. 2024 is dedicated to a process titled :

TOUCHING BODIES MAKING CULTURES.

This process started with incubation and turbulent infrastructure making.

Now, DIVAS are giving birth to a few new public formats currently with:

Aga (Czar) Pędziwiatr, Deborah Macauley, Juan Ferrari, Mira Rojzman, Neyen Pailamilla, Rabea Grand, Thea Reifler, V (Blask) Pierzńyski and Yann Slattery.

To contaminate the city of Zurich with these formats, DIVAS partners with Gessnerallee and the self-organised cultural space Guiña Freiestrasse.   DIVAS use the powerful tool of light touch to remember trans* futures and celebrate pleasure despite all odds. The name for the project gestures toward becoming divine together. DIVAS summon the diva as open, strong energy that doesn’t follow norms. DIVAS are not fixed to one gender, a culture nor specific image. DIVAS embrace connections and multiple perspectives, moving and transforming together. DIVAS stand for a queer urge to nourish and share the strength that comes from both difference and interdependence between us. DIVAS are shining the light, that we all carry inside, onto each other. DIVAS as cultural workers include practices of care in their work ethics. We adapt modes of working to our positions, needs and desires. DIVAS encompass different neurodivergent conditions and sensitivities towards life. Due to a q in queer for questioning, we acknowledge and practice different forms of resistance. DIVAS can be transforming, tender, but hardcore refusing the dominant cultures.

 

*trans* with an asterisk as proposed by Halberstam. J. (2018) in Trans* : A quick and quirky account of gender variability, University of California Press.