May 28th – 31st, 2025 Festival TransAmériques, Montreal
90 minutes
in French (28th & 29th) / in English (30th & 31st)
Dresscode: All-black
An Interdisciplinary Performance of Stunning Intensity
With AUTOGYNEGAMY, Montreal underground icon Elle Barbara has set out to create an interdisciplinary performance of stunning intensity. In a dazzling display of her talents—from dance to music, multimedia to revisionist Bible stories—the singer, performer, and model undergoes a rebirth before our very eyes. Amid the architectural splendour of Très-Saint-Rédempteur church, presided over by a priest/narrator, the story of her life is performed through a series of powerfully symbolic acts. Her gender transition, socio-medical sacrifice, and liberation are transformed by a bevy of professional and amateur dancers who revel in outrageousness and excess—just like the “queen of Montreal” herself.
In AUTOGYNEGAMY, Elle Barbara appropriates the rites of marriage, with the audience cast as guests at a wedding ceremony right out of a fairy tale, in a spectacular celebration of self-love and self-respect.