JUICE

Feminine beauty is said to be just as recognizable in her as a mustache and beard. Mademoiselle Lefort begins her international career with this exhibition; she travels throughout much of Europe and lives a largely independent life. What Lefort felt at the time is unknown. How her body was examined and viewed by doctors is meticulously documented.


In 2024, Heidelberg University Hospital lists intersex as a medical condition and advises: "Surgery is necessary in the vast majority of cases." Surgery today makes it possible "for the external genitalia to appear normal – either like those of a girl or a boy."


In the two hundred years between these events, medicine has declared intersex people from a biological phenomenon to an anatomical impossibility. Expert opinion after expert opinion, the existence of intersex people is dissected, examined, evaluated, and ultimately rendered impossible.


JUICE confronts the categorization of hermaphroditic, unreadable, and disobedient bodies. Performer River Roux enters a transparent space. Whether a museum, strip club, or observatory, the gazes directed at her oscillate between desire and disgust, between attraction and shame. Roux explores the fascination with bodies in between: What is a 'natural' body and what is a rebellious body? And who is allowed to exist beyond fetish?


Performance in English



Note: Terms like 'hermaphrodite' are used today only as a self-description or in a historical context. Most intersex people identify as 'inter,' 'intersex,' or 'intergender.'



River Roux is a performance artist and theater maker. Until recently, she appeared in Lola Arias' Happy Nights, created at Theater Bremen. River Roux studied photography at the University of Brighton in England. From 2021 to 2023, River was part of the Berlin Strippers Collective.


During this time, she created Merry Stripmas (It Only Takes One) for the Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, as well as numerous feminist interventions and nightlife performances, including for the Tag der Clubkultur and the WHOLE Festival. River is currently performing in A Stripper's Closet at the Theaterschiff Heilbronn.


River has worked in over ten professions, including as a stripper and carpenter, and her work addresses the connections between work, care, gender, and sex. In the 2024/25 season, she will present JUICE at the Theaterschiff Heilbronn and the Volksbühne in Berlin. River will study in the MA DAS Theatre program at the Amsterdam University of the Arts.