Manuela Montoya Ramirez & Guaybo Collective (FR)

A Practical Guide to Being a Whore
Manuela Montoya Ramirez & Guaybo Collective (FR)

Manuela Montoya Ramirez is a contemporary circus artist and independent director based in Toulouse, where she completed the FoCon professional program at Esacto’ Lido. Her international path includes the National Circus School of Cali and the specialized dance trapeze program in Turin. Her current creation is supported and hosted by Guayabo Colectivo, an association rooted in territorial traditions and artistic community projects. Inspired by the philosophy of Byung-Chul Han, Guayabo believes in active hope born from celebration and gatherings, viewing creation as an act of joyful resistance to build society through care and connection. Through this institutional and administrative framework, she establishes her voice as an artistic director, bridging high-level aerial technique and bouffon language with raw social narratives drawn from her lived experience. This project unites her background as an independent creator with a solid structural foundation, transforming the trapeze into a political space where art is not a luxury, but an autonomous rightand a community driver.

About A Practical Guide to Being a Whore:
A contemporary circus and physical theater piece using the trapeze, whip, and bouffon performance to draw from personal experience as a migrant sex worker, dismantling societal taboos through a raw, practical reflection on the complexities, intimacy, and armor required in sex work.