2025 / Duet
Maria Silk and Théophylle Dcx’s duet On the Floor dives into the queer legacies of 1980s dance music. Entering altered states induced by dance, the duo travels into an inner space of hedonism, escape, and discipline, guided by the four-on-the-floor rhythm of disco and hi-NRG music. Rooted in the connections between this music and the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, On the Floor stages the power of nightlife as a way of mourning, remembering, and surviving. Harnessing the blazing intensity of dance music in moments of crisis, Silk and Dcx call on queer ghosts and ancestors for ways of staying together through exhaustion and repetition.
photos by Robbie Sweeny
Viewing Pleasure
Choreography and Performance: Maria Silk and Théophylle Dcx
Music: Izaak Schlossman
Dramaturgical Assistance: Kim Ip and Marion Parigi
Lighting Design: gg torres
Video documentation by Chani Bockwinkel and Ben Estabrook
Teaser edited by Lavande
Photo documentation by Robbie Sweeny
On the Floor has received support from the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics, Flourish Trust, and The Center for Interdisciplinary Critical Inquiry’s Psychedelics in Society and Culture fellowship program; the Kenneth Rainin Foundation’s New and Experimental Works (NEW) program; the Zellerbach Family Foundation’s Community Arts program; and CounterPulse’s Edge Residency program.
Maria Silk 