Readings : identities and freedom

Reading

Saturday 19 September
16:00 - 17:15

Price: Gratuit - Gratis - Free Language: Français Location: Petite Halle

Lylybeth Merle : lecture en français

Itziar Ziga : lecture en espagnol surtitré en français

Nour Symon : lecture en français

Andro Dadiani : performance in Georgian, subtitled in English et surtitré en français

with

Nour Symon, Lylybeth Merle, Itziar Ziga & Andro Dadiani

Presentations

In this series of readings and performances, words are resistance and celebration, bodies are journeys and resilience, and souls are freedom and pride. Four queer artists wield their words with power to explore different facets of trans identity, each with their own unique perspective, their own path, their own words. What unites them on stage unites us in the audience. They invite us to celebrate together the struggles and the victories, to listen to the revolutionary intimacy and the affirmation of self in order to exist without limits.

Four queer artists share their words with power to explore different facets of transidentity, each with their unique perspective, their own path, their own words.

Au début, j’y vais doucement
je demande qu’on utilise il et elle
Mais le elle s’efface
On tente pour faire plaisir
le premier jour ça tient
la première phrase ça tient
puis ça s’efface
Tu comprends la barbe ça n’aide pas
Alors il faut durcir le trait
ce sera elle à tout jamais

Ma barbe, mon ultime féminité

- Lylybeth MERLE, Échardes, Arbre de Diane, coll. « Les deux Sœurs », 2026

Itziar Ziga grew up in a housing project in the Spanish Basque Country, amidst toxic clouds and fluorescent green wastelands. She loves feather boas, sometimes dresses up as a truck driver, and refers to herself as a dog. This book displays a furiously contagious freedom and enthusiasm. It bears witness to a joyful activism marked by cross-dressing and street performances, and carries the raw demands of those who remain on the margins of a society that condemns them.

With a preface by Virginie Despentes and Paul B. Preciado, Devenir perra is as much a collective portrait as an autobiographical essay. Itziar Ziga describes the experience of a subversive femininity, one that is hyperbolic and parodic. Prostitution, the veil, sexualities, trans identity, and social precarity are all themes that run through the text, in a resolutely intersectional and anti-assimilationist approach.

Je suis un·e slutty queen trans fèm égypto-québécois·e neurodivergent·e polyamoureux·se et pansexuel·le. Avant de quitter le Québec pour l’Égypte, j’étais en deuil et je craignais la disparition de la beauté. Tout a changé quand j’ai visité ce pays que j’étais si pressé·e de rencontrer depuis la prise de conscience de mes origines. Je ne suis peut-être plus la même personne maintenant. Et pourtant, je suis toujours un·e slutty queen trans fèm égypto-québécois·e neurodivergent·e polyamoureux·se et pansexuel·le, effrayé·e par la disparition de la beauté, et en deuil.

- Nour SYMON, Khawal Le privilège de la beauté, Ed. Le Noroît

Since 2017, the artist has worked under a pseudonym and behind a mask. For him, this became the only way to think and exist freely in a country where difference is perceived as a threat. This repressed identity gives his work a generalized character and a strong emotional and critical force.

Our speakers

Lylybeth Merle

Born in Strasbourg in 1991, Lylybeth Merle is an author, director, drag performer, and queer activist. After studying drama at INSAS, she discovered a love for cabaret. She staged *LILITH(s)* in 2022, *Hippocampe* in 2023, and has been touring the traveling production *Cabaret Poème* since 2023. In her work, she blends the intimate with the poetic and advocates for care as a means of reconnecting with oneself and the world; vulnerability as a transformative force; and the sharing of personal experiences to foster a sense of collective self-discovery. Coming from a queer and underground background, she explores the institutionalized cultural landscape and works to build bridges between different spaces and audiences to rebuild a connection that she feels is all too often fragile. Through her writing, she speaks to those whose journeys, experiences, and misadventures are similar, in order to counter the feeling of isolation and loneliness. Equally, she seeks to connect with those who are unfamiliar with these issues—those who wish to discover, learn, and question together.

Itziar Ziga

Itziar Ziga is a Spanish journalist, post-porn performer, and feminist activist. Born in 1974 in a working-class neighborhood of Errenteria (Basque Country), she moved to Barcelona after completing her journalism studies. There, she held a series of precarious jobs, was active in the Catalan Gay Liberation Front, contributed to various feminist journals (Andra, Paroles de queer, etc.), and was part of the Post-Op collective, a group of queer and post-porn activists. Since *Devenir chienne*, published in 2009 by Melusina, she has published five other books: *Un zulo propio* (2010), *El género desordenado* (2010), *Glamur i resistència* (2011), *Sexual Herria* (2011), and *Malditas* (2014).

Nour Symon

The Egyptian-Quebecois artist Nour Symon presents lyrical, noise-based, and intimate works driven by a desire to highlight the complexity of the interactions between her identities—queer, migrant, and in love with the sounds of the world. Her artistic practice is guided by a passionate convergence of visual arts, concert music, and poetry. Her poetry collection *L’amour des oiseaux moches* (2020) was a finalist for both the Governor General’s Awards and the Émile-Nelligan Prize. Her books, *خول Khawal ou le privilège de la beauté* and *Doux rêves, belles personnes*, were recently published by Éditions du Noroît and Dent-de-lion.

Andro Dadiani

Andro Dadiani is a Georgian multidisciplinary artist whose work moves between word and image. His artistic process is a reflection on identity, migration, and resilience, where the personal meets the universal and becomes publicly voiced. Since 2017, the artist has worked under a pseudonym and behind a mask. For him, this became the only way to think and exist freely in a country where difference is perceived as a threat. This repressed identity gives his work a generalized character and a strong emotional and critical force. Andro Dadiani has published the poetry collection Purgatory and The Anthology of Georgian Queer Poetry, as well as the plays Happiness Nh2 and Passport, which have been staged in Tbilisi and Berlin. He has held two solo exhibitions. Through his performances, he often responds to the political agenda of the moment. In his practice, the artist combines poetry, performance, staged photography, and installation. The artist is currently in Belgium with the status of a political refugee.