ADIDAS

Ahilan Ratnamohan's first memory of a World Cup didn’t revolve around a legendary goal or an iconic victory, but around Roberto Baggio's braided ponytail and Jorge Campos' vivid goalkeeper jersey. Even today, he still remembers with razor-sharp clarity every shirt of every team he played against as a child in Australia. Even then, a football shirt meant much more to Ahilan than an ordinary piece of clothing. Later, he took it a step further. His mother's old curtains became suspenders to fasten his shin guards. The cut-off sleeve of an old Nike jersey served as a bracelet. Ahilan's shirt obsession diminished as he tried to become a professional footballer himself. But the impact of football fashion on movement, identity, and culture continued to fascinate him beyond measure. In this performance at the boundaries of dance performance, football match, lecture, and catwalk, Ahilan departs from his unique football-dance practice to scrutinize his unique relationship with football and fashion. Based on personal memories and stories, Ahilan traces the emergence of fashion trends in modern football and their consequences for society, culture, and identity. He focuses on fabric, cut, and styles, but also reflects on queerness and homophobia in a performance for football lovers, theatre lovers, and football haters. • Ahilan Ratnamohan creates interdisciplinary performances in collaboration with non-classically trained performers. After an attempt at a professional football career in Europe, he has focused on the performing arts since 2007, first in Sydney and later from Antwerp. With sport and language learning processes as his primary interests, he develops three tracks in his practice: research into the choreography of football, research into the performativity of language lessons, and collaboration with the Star Boy Collective. He was artist in residence at Kaaitheater from 2023 to 2025.