Review by Nele Cumart from the HAZ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung online dated May 10, 2025:

“Shame”: The dance offensive kicks off with a magnificent opening at the Eisfabrik
To mark the opening of the dance offensive, choreographer Maura Morales explores the feeling of shame in her piece “Shame” – a magnificent piece and more than just a dance performance.
HAZ online Nele Cumart May 10, 2025
Who in our society has to feel ashamed, and for what? To open the eleventh dance offensive, Cuban choreographer Maura Morales presents her piece “Shame” at the Eisfabrik. The piece is radically feminist and magnificently cinematic.
Right at the beginning, a close-up of a laser is shown on a screen, gliding – like a gaze – over the legs, stomach, and skin of a woman’s body. Shortly afterwards, stage lights fall on a dancer who lies on the floor with her back to the audience, contorted in an unnatural position: her legs are spread wide apart and pressed against the floor so that her buttocks are sticking up in the air. The audience looks directly between her spread legs. Directly at her “pubic area.”
Such striking scenes run through the entire piece. In combination with monologues, they leave little room for interpretation. It is about the pressure to live up to the role of a woman in patriarchy. About the instilled (or even imposed?) understanding of female sexuality as something shameful. About shedding this shame together.
In some places, the use of language further intensifies the performative climaxes. For example, when dancer Kira Metzler eats an apple that had previously blocked her mouth with insane desperation. With her mouth full, spitting out pieces of apple and speaking incomprehensibly, she expresses her rage about her shame. In other places, the words seem almost superfluous alongside the expressive choreography.
What’s more, the piece is simply brilliant. The dramaturgy is perfect from the first moment to the last. The live-sampled electronic music, the dancers’ inorganic movements, and the videos on the screen transform the ice factory into a dystopian, oppressive place. Until, in the final minutes, the dancers calm down and, bathed in warm light, shed their shame along with their clothes.
“Shame” manages to do justice to the multi-layered aspects of female shame in a way that is both radical and loving. A piece full of despair, courage, and strength.