About
They could not be more opposite: he, the beautiful and adored brother, and she, the unattractive, overweight, and lonely sister. And yet, the two share their lives. Living together in a shared apartment, the sister follows her brother’s many relationships, watches him wherever he goes, and takes care of his well-being.
SISTER:
Of course, I am the only blemish in the world of beautiful women at the summer house. My presence always creates a kind of quiet, unspoken confusion and unease — that I am here, even though I don’t really do anything, I simply exist. Men usually ignore me completely: they don’t greet me, they don’t look at me. Sometimes, perhaps someone passing by on their way to the bathroom might grab my ass without even looking at me and then move on, as if nothing had happened.
“To My Brother” is a poetic and unsettlingly honest story that opens the inner world of a woman through her relationship with her beautiful and desired brother. The sister lives in her brother’s shadow, observes his love life, and measures her own worth through his gaze and society’s standards of beauty. The story unfolds through everyday details, fantasies, sexual imaginings, and painful self-reflection, revealing the body at once as a limiting prison and as a possible space of liberation. The sister’s perspective on life appears simple and direct, yet through it a sharp social question emerges: who is allowed to be desired and loved, and who is destined to remain invisible.
“To My Brother” is a performance about identity, dependency, and self-discovery. It is a journey from submission and living in the shadows toward self-acceptance and inner freedom.
In form, it is a work of dance, voice, and psychophysical theatre, where word, movement, and sound create an intimate and intense experience that draws the audience directly into the perceptions, desires, and fears of the protagonist.
Director Tamur Tohver: If we look at the contemporary trend of injecting substances into lips and bodies to fit someone else’s aesthetic ideal, this story reveals an opposite message: respect yourself as you are, do not diminish your own value. You do not lose yourself by remaining flexible, but self-trust brings a new quality of perception.
This story is, on many levels, literally preventative: men vs. women, sisters and brothers, the rich and beautiful versus the plain and the “unattractive,” self-confidence versus living in chaos, self-love versus unconditional love…
I am a father, and I wish that my daughter would never have to think about how she should please others in order to be accepted as a woman. Writing this, I also realize as a creator that in making this work, we are at the same time freeing ourselves from our own limitations within this transition.
How and what should we express? When we are young, we think about how to please respected predecessors, satisfy the audience, or achieve a valued position. As we grow older, we begin to wonder whether the younger generation will accept us and our experience. Thresholds and criteria…
Tamur Tohver is a director, dramaturg, translator, and lecturer in the performing arts whose work focuses on exploring the inner impulses of mind and body and the nature of affective experience. As part of his doctoral research, he has developed Zero Zone Praxis and embodied forms of self-expression that combine psychological theatre, physical expression, and both affect theory (Massumi) and field theory (Kõiv and Rosenberg).
Tohver’s directorial approach seeks states in which word, voice, movement, and music form a unified psychophysical experience, where the audience does not remain a passive observer but is drawn into the immediate presence of the performance.
The author of the play, E.-L. Karhu, is an award-winning playwright and dramaturg from Helsinki with a background in social sciences and sociology. Her work often explores the relationship between the individual and society, as well as the mechanisms of power, desire, shame, and normativity. Karhu’s texts are known for their uncompromising honesty, poetic realism, and psychological precision.
“To My Brother” is one of her most influential works, exploring themes of embodiment, love, and self-worth in a way that challenges conventional narratives of beauty, normality, and gender roles.
