Performance “The Hybrid” by Robson Catalunha and Vesna Mačković
Brazilian artist Robson Catalunha created performance ” The Hybrid” and performed it for the first time during Robert Wilson’s summer residence in Watermill center in New York. After that, he performed it in Brasil, African country Cabo Verde and in Zagreb during the festival Sounded bodies. In Zagreb, he improved his performance from solo version to duet with Vesna Mačković.
The inspiration for the performance came from the observation of a series of portraits of human-botanical hybrids created by French photographer Cal Redback. From another point of view, they could also be read as plants assuming the human form.
Genetically a hybrid being is an organism created by the miscegenation between species. In 2017 in California, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute for Biological Research created embryos of human-pig hybrids that grew for four weeks.
So, what would happen if we find a human-pig on the street in the near future? What if this intelligent human-pig decides to study in a school, to be vegan, to be elected to public office and to criminalize the creation or consumption of pork? And could this human-pig get married in the church? If medicine advances and this becomes reality, how will we relate to these beings of different bodies? It may sound like science fiction, but we’re living something like this. Brazil is the country where more transsexual people are killed in the whole world. Are we not relating to transsexuality, for example, as an anomaly? The marriage between black and white people in the US was legalized just over 50 years ago. Black and white people are different species?
Therefore, The Hybrid is an experiment on the possibilities of reading a society, especially Brazilian, completely miscegenated, where all individuals are free not to identify with behavioral patterns. The Hybrid is an investigation into the relationship between individuals that obscure the boundaries between species, creeds, genres or any classifications or patterns.
The Hybrid: A sounding body
The Hybrid is an invitation to reflect on Human nature, with such different characteristics – including ways of being, thinking, feeling, acting or making sounds – that human beings tend to have, from the influence of the socio-cultural context.
The Hybrid is a being who speaks and communicates in different languages.
The Hybrid is a provocation to beings who speak the same language, but don´t understand each other.
The Hybrid is an experience for beings who don´t speak the same language but understand each other.
The Hybrid is a question with many answers.
The Hybrid can also be a fun experience between human-hybrids.
The Hybrid is an investigation into the relationship between individuals who blur the boundaries between species, races, creeds, genres or any classifications or behavioral patterns.
