This Is the Journey to Get Your Voice Back

What does »Koaxula« mean?

Natalia Escobar: It’s a made-up word. We did a cutup exercise where we worked with different letters. Since our idea was to reinvent narratives and to create hybrid work it seemed appropriate to use a made-up word.

How did you get to work together?

NE: The curators Sally Montes and Rogelio Sosa had a program called »El Sonido Que Atraviesa« (»The Sound that Permeates«) in the CCD, the Centro de Cultura Digital in Mexico City. They invited us to have a residency and create a site-specific project to close this curatorial program.

The title of your new performance is »Deslenguadas«. I found several translations of that term from »smooth-talking« to »unwritten«. How would you translate it?

NE: The word »Deslenguadas« literally means »without a tongue« or »cut out tongues«, metaphorically conveying the loss of voice and the violence faced by those who have been historically marginalized, colonized, and oppressed. Systems of belief have been imposed; languages have been destroyed. In »Deslenguadas«, dancers represent those who had their »tongue cut out« and are now finding their voices again. This is the journey to get your voice back, your tongue back.

Daniela Huerta: In the creation of our myth »Deslenguadas«, these tongues were thrown into the abyss of a serpent's mouth, the Ouroboros. The tongues became petrified and remained preserved in a sleeping state, as if they were incubating inside the serpent's mouth, guarded by rows of dangerous teeth — a sort of »Vagina Dentata«. Through the sonic energy of their whips, enabling passage between different dimensions, Deslenguadas travel into the underworld, seeking the destructive and transformative forces, the sexual power, and the words of severed tongues from various female entities that inhabit within. It is a return to the realm of the wild, a reconnection with their dark, animal side, and the buried power of the Great Ouroboric Mother.

Will the performance you’re going to present in the Kuppelhalle be a further development of what you did in Mexico?

NE: Yes, it will be. Since Mexico, we’ve been enhancing the sound composition, incorporating live recordings from the CCD performances and processing them through various synthesis. For Kuppelhalle, we’ll continue to shape the composition and performance to the history and sonic qualities of the space. Collaborating with new dancers will bring a different energy to the piece. We will also expand the use of the whips, not just acoustically but in a performative way, as there is still much to explore.

DH: We will be collaborating with the German movement director Marie Zechiel and with three Berlin-based dancers. This will bring something quite different from the piece we presented in Mexico because of their interpretation of the myth in a different cultural context. The narrative acquires a distinct life of its own when expanding through collaborations in specific locations. Also, presenting »Deslenguadas« at Kuppelhalle, a mourning hall and the first crematory in Berlin whose presence testifies to the changing conception of death, will definitely impact how we develop our piece in situ.

Daniela, as a composer and performer you incorporate the practice of Deep Listening into your work. What would you suggest to the audience of »Deslenguadas«? It’s not a classical concert situation. As a listener, you find yourself in the middle of this very physical performance.

DH: The idea is that the audience moves around the space and experiences different perspectives of how the performance unfolds. There are many instruments, including whips, which are not amplified, with the intention to sonically activate the space. The dancers, who also act as instruments, are constantly moving around and making vocal gestures that gradually increase. Natalia and I play electro-acoustic instruments and use our voices. Having these elements circulate around the space throughout the performance invites the crowd to a non-linear listening experience and to explore all the elements intuitively on their own.

What are the elements of the performance for Silent Green?

NE: The performance for Silent Green will feature Daniela and I playing a quadraphonic live set with electro-acoustic instruments, accompanied by the whip-wielding dancers and a vocalist. The use of whips as instruments serves not only as a sonic element but also as a metaphor, representing the power of the Mexica serpent-associated deities Coatlicue and Tlazolteotl, as well as the Embera Jefã.
Traditionally associated with oppressive systems and punishment, in our performance, the whips are re-appropriated as a symbol of empowerment and pleasure. The whip has this symbolic meaning and at the same time an acoustic presence. It breaks the sound barrier, so it’s a very powerful object. We were fascinated by the moment before it cracked, which seemed to transcend time and redefine the deities' significance.
We had a very Eurocentric education. They wouldn’t teach us about this in school, so reconnecting with our roots and identity is a way to decolonize these archetypes.

DH: Other performance elements include »shadow suits«, designed by Jen Gilpin under her label DSTM. These suits have detachable stretchy parts that connect two people, making it seem as though one is the shadow of the other. We will be using acoustic ancient flutes, shakers, electronics, and a vocalist, as Natalia mentioned.

Who’s this going to be? What style do they bring in?

DH: What would you say, Natalia, what style does Ilhem Khodja bring?

NE (laughs): Sublime yet earthly. I don’t know how to describe it. She brings very beautiful, soothing sounds. The other sound compositions of the project are very aggressive, cathartic, and crazy. This is kind of the rebirth moment of the myth.

How did you learn about the mythologies that are the basis for your own myth?

NE: I learned about Embera mythologies through Las Traviesas. In some cases, even they weren’t aware of these stories, so they would ask their mothers or grandmothers. It is important to reconnect with these cosmovisions and not lose these stories, especially since these myths, symbols, and deities are transmitted mainly through oral tradition. As for the Mexica mythologies, Daniela introduced them to me.

DH: For some time, I have been researching archaic female archetypes, and I found Coatlicue to be one of the most fascinating Mexica deities and a significant inspiration for early feminist movements. She was an important goddess known as the »Serpent Skirt«. She represents earth and fertility and was also associated with life and death, wearing a skirt of snakes and a necklace of human hearts, hands, and skulls. Coatlicue encapsulates the voracious, alluring, and poisonous aspects within the »Terrible Mother« archetype.

NE: There's a statue of Coatlicue discovered alongside the Aztec calendar. Unlike the calendar, which was displayed, Coatlicue was hidden for many years. The Spanish Christian invaders considered her an inappropriate idol, they also saw the power and attraction she had on the Mexican people.

But the statue is not hidden anymore?

NE: She’s now displayed in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City, next to the Aztec calendar.