Louise Mary

About her piece - Through Us You Rest

Why do we choose to whack? Why do you watch?

The performance of society constrains our physicality. We have become restricted to acceptable shapes and positions. 

The dancer trains their body meticulously and overcomes the constraints of their physicality. The whacker learns to stretch out their arms, contort their body, release their tension. 

Through the whacker, the audience rests. They put down their need to perform a physicality. They witness a release, a stretching out, a fulfilment of space.

Artist Biography

Louise Maryam is a British-Iranian dancer and choreographer with a decade of experience in street and club styles. She specialises in whacking and is one of the founders of London Waacking Movement. She has studied whacking in London, Beijing, and Seoul, and competed in battles around the world. She has performed in the UK, Korea, and Germany, working with choreographers including Larkin Poynton and Pau Arnal. 

Now focussing on choreography, Louise explores the intersection between whacking and dance theatre with the goal of providing more space for this queer dance style.