HIDDEN MOTHERS | Elisabete Finger
Within the framework of the Étape Danse project
In collaboration with Mosaico Danza
Artistic and choreographic direction Elisabete Finger
creation and performance Lucas Resende, Marcela Reichelt, Mariana Romagnani, Mariana Pimentel
dramaturgy Olga Drygas
choreographic assistance Sandro Amaral
costumes Thelma Bonavita
sound design João Milet Meirelles
production management ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro
production residencies Micaela Trigo
Contributors to the research Ben Mucznik, Carolina Sendin, Manoela Rangel, Nicole Gomes
A production by Elisabete Finger
supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds and Étape Danse, a network of fabrik Potsdam, La Briqueterie CDCN Val-de-Marne and Mosaico Danza – Interplay Festival Torino, Goethe-Institut in Exile and Radialstiftung
with the support of Bureau du Théâtre et de la Danse/Institut français Deutschland, the French Ministry of Culture/DGCA, the City of Potsdam, Fondazione Piemonte dal Vivo, Lavanderia a Vapore Torino and Torinodanza Festival / Fondazione Teatro Stabile di Torino – Teatro Nazionale
in collaboration with Tanz im August Festival Berlin
Hidden Mothers (creation 2026/2027) investigates the tension between visibility and erasure in narratives of care. Drawing inspiration from historical images of the “hidden mother” — a 19th-century photographic practice in which mothers were physically present but visually concealed in order to hold children still — it raises questions about what we are able to see and what remains unnoticed. Rather than treating the hidden as an absence, the work brings it into the frame: the bodies, gestures, dependencies, and obligations that make care possible, but that are regularly pushed out of sight. In this way, the “hidden mother” becomes less a historical curiosity than a political figure: a trace of all those who are structurally necessary and culturally made available. It asks who is allowed to appear as a subject of care, who is condemned to remain its infrastructure, and what might happen when the background refuses to stay still.
Elisabete Finger is a Brazilian choreographer and performer based in Berlin. She studied dance and choreography at institutions including Le CNDC d’Angers and Udk/HZT-MA SODA. Her creations explore bodies and raw materials, revealing internal/external anatomies through images and situations that exist on the boundary between pleasure and disturbance. Her sensory narratives challenge expectations around gender, behaviour, and normativity. Her work has been presented internationally in dance, performance, and visual arts contexts.