'Golden Vixen', When Pain Turns to Light

In the twilight, a body moves. It trembles, writhes, breathes. It does not perform, rather it invokes. It is a ritual. A ceremony to dignify death, to face abuse head-on, and to give pain a name.

At that moment, Elisa Forcano does not act, she opens a wound and lets it sing. Her work 'Golden Vixen' - presented for the first time in Alicante as part of the Spanish Contemporary Authors Theatre Showcase (Mutesac) - seeks neither answers nor morals.

"When I read Noa Pothoven's story, something pierced me," Forcano recounts. "She was a 17-year-old girl who decided to die by starvation. The news spoke of euthanasia, of laws, but no one asked why." The author needed to understand that why.

Noa Pothoven was a Dutch teenager who, after suffering abuse in her childhood, wrote a self-help book and ultimately decided on her own death. It was not granted legally. She did it herself, slowly, surrounded by her family.

"I was struck by the dignity with which she was accompanied and the paradox, as she was not considered mature enough to die, but mature enough to overcome the abuse. That contradiction tore me apart," Forcano laments.

The Aragonese creator translated Noa's entire book. She read it, inhabited it, wept over it. And from there, a question germinated that sparked her work. "If every woman who has suffered abuse were to immolate herself, who would bring life into the world?" along with another reflection: "If there were a mountain of stones for every woman raped, the fields would be extinguished."

In these questions lies the heart of 'Golden Vixen', a piece that does not narrate Noa's story, but transforms it into a symbol, a mirror, a trigger. "Noa was the seed. But the work speaks of all. Of every body that has been violated, of every inherited silence," hence the nature of autofiction.

The author and performer believes that 'Golden Vixen' lacks any "moral, ethical, or political" function. In fact, this piece was born because "I needed to poetize that pain, to turn it into something that can be looked at without fleeing. 'Golden Vixen' is my way of making catharsis."

The work blends word, movement, image, sound, and light. It is multidisciplinary, yes, but above all, it is organic, because it is born from the body. "I work from the physical, from the emotional. Each performance is different. The technique is already integrated. Now I travel with the audience, I listen to their energy," showcasing a living work.

'Golden Vixen' does not seek answers, quite the opposite, it shakes them. "Why is euthanasia only granted for physical illnesses?" "Why is mental health still treated as something that can be overcome?" "Who decides when a life is worthy or not of being lived?" These are questions that Elisa Forcano does not want to close, only to shake and expose them from the scene, the body, and the image.

With the help of Leonora Lax, assistant director and in charge of scenic plastic; Pilar Valdelvira, with lighting design; Benigno Moreno, in sound design; Víctor Izquierdo, in projections and production; and the original music by Iván Cózar, Pilar Almalé, and Benigno Moreno, Forcano has woven a visual liturgy where beauty and horror coexist.

The very title of this work is a provocation. "'Vixen' has always been used as an insult for women. I wanted to re-signify it: to give it intelligence, cunning, freedom. In English, there is 'silver fox' for attractive, intelligent older men. I wanted the same, but from the feminine."

And the golden? "It is the divine, the brilliant, what is desired. Noa will never be a silver vixen, because she committed suicide at 17. She will be a golden vixen," states Elisa Forcano about the title and content of this work that she will present on Thursday at Las Cigarreras.

This will be another representation within the 'Golden Vixen' circuit. It is there, in each performance, where Forcano herself transforms, just like the audience. Several attendees have already confessed to the author that "they cannot escape the work, that it continues to resonate with them for days, weeks, or months."

And indeed, as the light fades on stage, when only the echo of a breath remains, Elisa Forcano's body - her own, Noa's, everyone's - continues to shine, as if pain could have light. Because the golden does not always come from triumph, but from the courage to face what hurts.