“Due to this new posture, Thumbelina herself – as if for the first time – encounters the rest of her body, becoming increasingly engrossed with it. She modifies it, starves it, exercises it. She is worried about the quality of the food she consumes, has health anxieties. She goes out to the club because of a renewed fascination in how her own and other bodies move. She makes use of it while she can, fully aware that opportunities are scarce. Feeling that machines outperform her physically, Thumbelina asserts the body’s significance as a site of identity. Her struggle is tactically supported as authorities calculate the power to be gained from Thumbelina’s insistence on maintaining the assignment of particular identities to specific bodies.”

Alina Astrova, Unbearable Lightness: Thumbelina Goes to the Club

“…a tension in rave arises for girls between ‘remaining in control, and at the same time losing themselves in dance and music’.”

Angela McRobbie paraphrased by Helen Thomas, The Body Dance and Cultural Theory

Curated by Sarah McCauley