Boys Just Want To Have Fun

Boys Just Want To Have Fun is a durational multi-disciplinary dance-performance-art piece of 6 to 8 hours presenting in white exhibition/gallery spaces. The work explores deconstruction of masculinity and challenges taboos surrounding male sensuality and sexuality  within mainstream Western culture. 

By addressing power dynamics and hierarchies of social positioning in visual art spaces (the gallery), Boys Just Want To Have Fun interrogates the politics of object and subject - presenting the male as an object. It poses the questions: What a body is? How are its utterances informed by its process of becoming? What does an individual agency look like in a public space - both for audience and performers? In this context, objectification is utilised as means with which to examine the ‘man’ as an artwork, a creation, or fiction. In this piece, Aloni asks: How are men being “man-ified” and “man-ifactured” in our society?

This performative act is a durational score, a chain of solos which also includes moments of interaction amongst multiple performers from a cast of male presenting and identifying artists. The audience is invited to enter and exit the space as they please and to choose their own paths in the performance space, fostering a sense of active participation and engagement.

Concept Development

Since 2014, ilDance Artistic Director Israel Aloni has been addressing themes of gender and sexuality in both direct and indirect ways, in numerous projects, often through non-binary and female perspectives. In Boys Just Want To Have Fun, they delve into homoeroticism and toxic masculinity, examining how these influence the perception of male identity in modern society. The performance embodies post-humanist-feminist agenda through deconstruction and redefinition of the male.

Boys Just Want To Have Fun was developed through research residencies at Nau Ivanow (Barcelona, Spring 2023) and EIMA Creation Center (Mallorca, Fall 2023). The creation process took place during Summer and Fall 2024, with a premiere at Belgrade Pride Week, 1-3 September 2024, co-produced by Heartefact and supported by the Culture Moves Europe program of the European Union.