Ephyra ana's performance at fox & badge
APRIL 2026
The performance begins in the compressed frontal elegance of the hieroglyph - as attendant male consorts disrobe and dismount Isis from the sky. Isis flares out her arms in royal display - offering herself to the earthbound audience. The performer’s figure - svelte and athletic - mirrors the beauty ideal of the Armana period.
The tripartite cast of this section - compared to the larger ensemble of the rest of the performance - recalls the shrunken relationship structure of the royal Egyptians themselves, where genealogy collapses eerily into matrimony - Osiris as both son and husband of Isis.
What follows then is a procession of trust & intensity - as the performer skilfully suspends herself with fewer and fewer means, first with limbs, then with head, then with mouth.
Isis breaks from the ritual frontality of the prelude as she pirouettes into the sky - then winds into a scorpion - then back into the splits - and then flaunts a kind of languidly suspended Z-pose. The stage lighting works brilliantly at this section, illuminating the gold body paint of the performer. As she dismounts to reach the earth, she prepares for the next phase of the performance as she suspends herself with the nape of her neck and broadens her legs into akimbo in an act of both surrender and strength. Another nod to historical detail - as long, slender necks were a defining feature of the Armana period of Egyptian beauty.
Marking the next ramp up of the performance, Isis is ritually re-robed by a muscular male consort for her signature iron jaw act as she suspends herself purely through the strength of her jaw - perhaps recalling Isis’ magical powers of speech that she used to resurrect Osiris and protect Horus.