Tripping Sheela
Tenderness, Trouble and Feminist Excess
“Tripping Sheela” fuses live sound, performance, and textile art into a visceral experience. The protagonist Sheela takes us on an emotional journey through the four songs LOVE SONG, HATE SONG, SIGH SONG, and SEX SONG, where desire trembles, anger erupts, exhaustion sighs, and pleasure pulses. “Tripping Sheela” playfully engages with the musical genre while radically reimagining it through a feminist and queer lens. It is messy, tender, and powerful, leaning into sensation, affect, and embodied knowledge.
Inspired by the nearly 1,000-year-old stone carvings of bald, naked figures exposing exaggerated vulvas — the so-called Sheela-na-gigs — “Tripping Sheela” reclaims this phenomenon as a contemporary, living figure. It connects ancient imagery with present-day questions of gender, sexuality, ecology, and care, creating a space for longing, resistance, and collective release.
Concept and Performance: Talaya Schmid
Set Design: Ernestyna Orlowska
Sound: Belia Winnewisser
Direction: Sylvia Sobottka
Text Advisor: Louisa Behr
Artistic Advisor: Bendix Fesefeldt
Outside Eye: Julia Reichert
Light: Demi Jakob
Project Management: Marlene Kurz
Project Assistants: Naira Mathis and Chiara Vancheri
Graphic Design: Yaiza Cabrera
Date: 27 and 28 March
Location: Zentralwäscherei, Zürich
Admission: 8:00–8:10 pm (no late admission)
Performance start: 8:10 pm
Duration: approx. 50 min
Language: German and English
Recommended age: 18
Price: Pay-what-you-wish (15 / 20 / 25 / 40 CHF) via EVENTFROG: https://eventfrog.ch/tripping-sheela
Suggested price: 20 CHF
Supported by:
Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung
Ernst und Olga Gubler-Hablützel Stiftung
Stiftung Erna und Curt Burgauer
Else v. Sick Stiftung
“Tripping Sheela” fuses live sound, performance, and textile art into a visceral experience. The protagonist Sheela takes us on an emotional journey through the four songs LOVE SONG, HATE SONG, SIGH SONG, and SEX SONG, where desire trembles, anger erupts, exhaustion sighs, and pleasure pulses. “Tripping Sheela” playfully engages with the musical genre while radically reimagining it through a feminist and queer lens. It is messy, tender, and powerful, leaning into sensation, affect, and embodied knowledge.
Inspired by the nearly 1,000-year-old stone carvings of bald, naked figures exposing exaggerated vulvas — the so-called Sheela-na-gigs — “Tripping Sheela” reclaims this phenomenon as a contemporary, living figure. It connects ancient imagery with present-day questions of gender, sexuality, ecology, and care, creating a space for longing, resistance, and collective release.
Concept and Performance: Talaya Schmid
Set Design: Ernestyna Orlowska
Sound: Belia Winnewisser
Direction: Sylvia Sobottka
Text Advisor: Louisa Behr
Artistic Advisor: Bendix Fesefeldt
Outside Eye: Julia Reichert
Light: Demi Jakob
Project Management: Marlene Kurz
Project Assistants: Naira Mathis and Chiara Vancheri
Graphic Design: Yaiza Cabrera
Date: 27 and 28 March
Location: Zentralwäscherei, Zürich
Admission: 8:00–8:10 pm (no late admission)
Performance start: 8:10 pm
Duration: approx. 50 min
Language: German and English
Recommended age: 18
Price: Pay-what-you-wish (15 / 20 / 25 / 40 CHF) via EVENTFROG: https://eventfrog.ch/tripping-sheela
Suggested price: 20 CHF
Supported by:
Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung
Ernst und Olga Gubler-Hablützel Stiftung
Stiftung Erna und Curt Burgauer
Else v. Sick Stiftung
