PROJECT

Traumboy

Daniel is a sex worker. In the solo performance Traumboy he reports on his experiences as a male prostitute. Without shame, honestly and interactively. He talks about the reasons for choosing this profession, describes his clients and their desires. The audience meets a young man who prostitutes himself deliberately. The only problem: the stigma that comes with it. Having sex with strangers for money is still considered a taboo.

Traumboy questions the double standards of our capitalistic and hypersexualized society. The focus on male prostitution allows to evade the customary narrative about exploitation and suffering of vulnerable women and addresses more subtle power relations.

The performer’s body turns into a projection surface for fears, fantasies and contradictions. He slips into different roles that he plays for his customers – or for the audience? With this ambiguous self-staging the spectators are challenged to scrutinize their sexual ideals and to take a close look at the sexual being that they consider themselves. Are the boundaries in your mind where you expect them?

Première: 13-18 June 2015 – Festspiele Zürich / Theaterhaus Gessnerallee

Daniel Hellmann

Daniel Hellmann is a dance- and theatermaker, singer and performer. He is based in his hometown Zurich as well as in Berlin and studied philosophy, classical singing and theatre / performance in Zurich, Lausanne and Bern. After taking part in several opera productions in Switzerland, Belgium and Germany he founded 3art3 Company in 2012 in order to realize pieces that unite music, dance and theater.

Since 2014 he created Untold with 3art3 and as a co-production with Les Ballets C de la B, with Matterhorn Produktionen the music-theatre piece Nach Lampedusa – Wandererfantasien about the Swiss asylum system and the interactive performances Full Service and THE_SPACE_BETWEEN. Hellmann’s solo performance Traumboy about male prostitution premiered in 2015 as a co-production with Gessnerallee Zürich and Festspiele Zürich and was invited to Swiss Selection in Avignon 2016.

Credits

Concept / performance: Daniel HellmannDramaturgy: Wilma RenfordtThird eye: Ivan BlagajcevicSet, costume design: Theres IndermaurSound: Leo HofmannLight: Gioia ScanziProduction management: Daniela LehmannTour management: Florence FranciscoTranslation: Melanie Jame WolfProduction: 3art3Coproduction: Theaterhaus Gessnerallee & Festspiele ZürichSupported by: Stadt Zürich Kultur, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Pro Helvetia Schweizer Kulturstiftung, Migros Kulturprozent, Nestlé Fondation pour l’Art, Schweizer Tanzarchiv - Preis für Videodokumentation, wpZimmer Antwerpen