The most intriguing duel fought between women took place in August 1892 in Verduz, the capitol of Liechtenstein, between Princess Pauline Metternich and the Countess Kielmannsegg. It has gone down in history as the first “emancipated duel” because all parties involved were female. (...) Before the proceedings began, it was pointed out that many insignificant injuries in duels often became septic due to strips of clothing being driven into the wound by the point of a sword. To counter this danger it was suggested that both parties should fight stripped of any garments above the waist. For the women, the decision to unbutton the tops of their dresses was not sexual; it was simply a way of preventing a duel of first blood from becoming a duel to the death.

This story was the starting point for my latest piece. I use to think that duelling is a man “speciality” as traditionally it was reserved only for the male members of nobility. But searching further I found several images, paintings, postcards from the end of XIX and beginning of XX century representing topless woman facing each other holding swords. And it gave me the wish to stage a similar situation. I was wondering: are those images examples of early pornography? Or did they already have at their time the subversive potential of exploding the traditional way of looking at things? Seeing women as fighters works against the cultural understanding of femininity which uses notions of reconciliation, harmony and resistance towards conflict. But at the same time, no matter the pragmatical reason of their nudity (avoiding the lethal danger of infection) fighting women can't help being objectified. They are represented in order to provoke arousal and please the male gaze.

Creating Duel my wish was to face and challenge the stereotyped images of fighting woman. I wanted to work with the patriarchal strategies of objectification and at the same time to bring on stage female sexuality and eroticism shown from the female perspective. I wished to tackle those issues as they still seem to be covered by lots of taboos, myths and misunderstandings.

Updating: March 2015

Agata Maszkiewicz is a choreographer and performer. In October 2009 she graduated Institute of Dance Arts at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversitaet in Linz, Austria (Master of Arts M.A.). She is a recipient of the danceWEB scholarship in 2006. From January till June 2007 she continued her education in the Centre Choreoghraphique National (CCN) in Montpellier as a participant of the ex.e.r.ce program (under the guidance of Xavier Le Roy). Next to her own work, she collaborates with the collective Superamas, Ivana Müller, Alix Eynaudi, Anne Juren and recently with theatre director Weronika Szczawińska.

In her own work (Don Kiewicz i Sanczo Waniec, Polska, Snowflakes, From A to P) she uses different forms creating dance/theatre performances, videos, installations and texts where choreography is used as the main dramaturgical tool.

She likes tracing various social patterns and transforming them on stage in a humorous as well as poetic way. The Austrian critic Helmut Ploebst called her a "sociocritical choreographer". She works and lives generally in Europe.

Since 2001, the National Center for Dance (CND) has been making recordings of its shows and educational programming and has created resources from these filmed performances (interviews, danced conferences, meetings with artists, demonstrations, major lessons, symposia specialized, thematic arrangements, etc.).