ruins of a shell
// solo dance performance
+ concept + artistic direction + performance
Grief as a strange, constantly shifting terrain: Cat Jimenez’ dance solo ruins of a shell traces the moment of reorientation after impact. What happens when the shock subsides and only traces remain? Here, between longing and irony, shells become objects of remembrance and migration – suspended between what hurts and what allows us to keep going.
In Cat Jimenez’ solo performance ruins of a shell, grief unfolds as an inner movement. In this biographically inspired work, the dancer/choreographer follows those uncanny processes through which sensations reorganize themselves – what trembles and crumbles, what endures, and what slowly returns. Movement and atmosphere emerge from paradoxical tensions and shifting states of bittersweet irony; they condense and disperse, pulling the body into ever-new currents. The titular shell becomes a keyhole into Jimenez’ childhood – to winters spent selling Philippine goods at Vienna’s Christmas markets and carrying their scents back home. No longer associated with the sea, but with labor, longing, and cultural distance, the shell functions as a hand-wrapped souvenir of mixed emotions.
Sincerity and irony sit side by side in ruins of a shell – when grief shifts shape once again, the moment you think you’ve got it all figured out. The intertwining of biography with fleeting references to pop and subcultures, set in quiet defiance of established cultural practices, reveals a subtle contradiction: Life is rarely just one thing; rather, it is a continuous, collective reorientation within the spectrum of what hurts – and what allows us to go on.
Artistic direction, concept & performance Cat Jimenez Musical direction & composition Martin Mitterstieler Set design Christiane Peschek Costume design & styling Katharina Reuschel Lighting design Sveta Schwin Dramaturgy Imani Rameses, Philipp Riéra, Darun Dhamija Press & PR Tania Fuchs Artistic collaboration stage and production Shan Kim Production management Magdalena Stolhofer, Nina Samadi/dieKulturtanten
A co-production by Kulturverein Amygdala Wien/Cat Jimenez and imagetanz 2026/brut Wien Funded by the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs (MA7), Austrian Federal Ministry of Housing, Art, Culture, Media and Sport (BMWKMS) and SKE With the kind support of Raw Matters and Bears in the Park Thanks to Aaron Josi Sternbauer, Alexandra Filippidou / Alex Waves and Rexx as well as Kristine Stefanovsky / Tate Agency.
Photos by Hanna Fasching














