JUICE

A Body Under Observation

River Roux is a performance artist, writer, and performer. In Roux’s work, the focus is on bodies that evade conventional categories—bodies that are read, assessed, medicalized, and controlled. The starting point is often Roux’s own biography, combined with in-depth research into queer, trans*, and inter* histories and their social and institutional treatment.

Working at the intersection of performance, text, and movement, Roux deliberately seeks proximity to the audience. The works are at once political, sensual, and confrontational: they pose questions of normality, visibility, and power, and make tangible how gazes operate—and how they can wound. Together with co-creator Bibiana Mendes, River Roux develops works that center queer narratives and create spaces for resistance, self-empowerment, and solidarity, particularly where these perspectives are often marginalized.

3 TAGE FREI presents: JUICE

In the solo performance JUICE, developed by River Roux in co-creation with Bibiana Mendes, Roux enters a closed, transparent hexagon. The space renders Roux visible and exposed, yet untouchable. Proximity is created without allowing access. JUICE examines the fascination with bodies “in between” and exposes the mechanisms of observation, projection, and fetishization to which inter* and gender non-conforming bodies are subjected.

Drawing on historical and contemporary medical discourses, JUICE traces a line from the exhibition of inter* bodies in the nineteenth century to present-day normalizing interventions. Through poetic storytelling, slapstick elements, and physical precision, the performance poses questions about the “natural” body—and about what happens when bodies refuse to be clearly defined.

JUICE is at once intimate and political, vulnerable and resistant. A work that returns the gaze—and does not leave it unanswered.