Nehra Stella is an artist, body worker and filmmaker.
In her work she explores gender, sexuality, identity issues, love and relationships, with an ironic, erotic, feminist, queer point of view.
She believes that ART and SEX can change the world.
She directed “Paris la Nuit” in 2009, “Vivre Berlin” in 2013 and “Berlin-Sarajevo” in 2014, together with the artist Natasha Davis, that premiered at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in May 2019. She is currently editing the documentary “LE BEL ANIMAL“ about the Xplore festival.
Parallel to her artistic work she focuses on different body practices, yoga, nutrition and hypnotherapy.
Since 2013 she collaborates with Felix Ruckert on different projects: performances, music videos, workshops and fasting retreat. Since 2017 she co-curated with him the program for Xplore festival for Roma, Barcelona and Copenhagen.
She also teaches workshops on Female Empowerment, Conscious kink, Gender Fluidity and Bondage and she performs in rope with the artist Pilar Aldea.
In 2018 she created together with the artist Anna Natt the play space “School of Love“ for Berlin xplore 2018.
Workshops
Queer Romance
What I first have learned about ROMANCE ?
A YOUNG and decayed PRINCESS, very SWEET and KIND, lives with her EVIL STEPMOTHER and her UGLY HALF-SISTER; she is ABUSED daily by the WOMEN’S MISCHIEVIOUS BEHAVIORS.
But one day she has the chance to go in disguise to the KINGS’S PARTY where her BEAUTY is immediately noticed by the PRINCE.
He invites her to a waltz and as they dance trough the night it’s love at first sight.
But at midnight the MODEST and IMMACULATE YOUNG PRINCESS runs away,
The prince MADLY IN LOVE looks for her everywhere, until he finds and SAVES HER and finally MARRIES HER…
And they LIVED HAPPILY FOREVER AFTER…
I have heard this story so many times since my childhood and kept on hearing it throughout my child´s childhood… But what I didn’t know when I first heard it and that I know now is:
YOUNG
As women we hear about the importance of being young.
Nobody wants to hear or talk about old women, they don’t even appear in films or on TV, they are not represented as if they don’t exist or have any power…
(If they occasionally do, they are not really seen as women, like Angela or Margaret… but now what about this new emerging women such as Alexandra Cortez or Amal Clooney?? Are they hot enough??)PRINCESS
There are 28 existing kings and queens today versus 7.690.000.000 people.SWEET and KIND
These are the qualities that the biological gender I belong to is expected to display. Women must be sweet and kind.EVIL STEPMOTHER
Every woman should be a good mother. But she is also the root of all evil.UGLY HALF-SISTER
Women´s beauty is very important and when referring to a girl or to a woman, her aspect will always be the most important thing to notice and to compare…ABUSED
Women are abused, a lot…
Only in the USA a woman is beaten every 9 seconds. ( Rebecca Solnit, “Men explain things to me“)WOMEN’S MISCHIEVIOUS BEHAVIORS
A big part of our society, pop culture, literature, films, judges, politicians and religions tend to believe that what men do to women is ultimately just women’s fault…
Or eventually what they are really wishing for…KINGS’S PARTY
This make me think essentially to:
– The Vatican
– Berlusconi and Putin in their famous “Bunga bunga“
– Some horrid stories of secret VIP pedophiles circles
– The marriage of Prince William, duke of Cambridge and Katie Middleton…PRINCE
He is the ideal man, who brings wealth, care and protection and gives sense to the meaningless and passive life of a young and beautiful woman.MODEST and IMMACULATE
To be good women must be like the Virgin Mary… Virgins.
She is the only respectable woman versus many bad examples like Eve, Cleopatra, Medea…YOUNG PRINCESS
650 millions girls and 115 millions boys are married before the age of 18.MADLY IN LOVE
Men are so madly in love with women that they sometimes kill them…*
(*According to “Wounded to Death“, 66.000 women are killed by men annually, worldwide, most of them by lovers, husbands and former partners…)SAVE HER
Women worldwide aged 15 through 44 are more likely to die or be severely injured because of male violence than because of cancer, malaria, war and traffic accidents combined. * (*Nicholas D. Kristof)MARRIES HER
Spouses are also the leading cause of death for pregnant women in USA.LIVE HAPPILY FOREVER AFTER… If this idea of Romance has bored you to death… If you are still looking for your own charming Prince/Princess or if you wish to reclaim your own way of being a Princess/Prince (maybe both), or even if you think you might have already found him, her, them… You are welcome to join QUEER ROMANCE.
We will theorize, fantasize and play together, to create memories, references, roles models, scenarios and any inspiring, subversive, personal, unique, weird new form of ROMANCE.
For a better understanding about how to contribute to this magic collective creation, I invite you to watch Felix Ruckert’s lecture “Creating Sex Positive Spaces”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uxoN7mY5KI)References and citations:
“Misogynies“ by Joan Smith
“Men explain things to me“ by Rebecca Solnit
“Woman Power, a Manifesto“ by Mary Beard
“All about Love“ by Bell Hooks
“Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve, the story that created us Stephen Greenblatt
English (UK) 
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