Growing up in rural Nicaragua, queer performance artist Elyla endured the country’s toxic and ongoing legacy of colonialism. In their visceral new performance piece Saint Peter Goose/Duck Pulling, they transforms a violent and hyper-masculine ritual from the country’s patriarchal tradition into an immersive experience of healing for artist and audience members alike. Join Elyla for this participatory act of creativity, as a country’s troubled history is revisited through a cathartic and engaging ceremony.

...l left the house running and pushed my way between people. However, I could not see the men play from a distance, but when I was finally able to get close enough... I don’t remember much, I just remember blood falling from the sky and the happy faces of men celebrating. They celebrated because they had been able to tear off the head of a duck, they were not playing in order to hold a cloud in their hands. Then the voices came out of my memory to remind me: you are not a woman, you are not a man, could you perhaps be a duck/pato? {pato is an insult for queer people in Nicaragua vernacular}

A body that cannot tell its own truth is a body that has been silenced and mutilated by the history of another. I am here now, giving a voice to that history...

*In what territory do I let this grief loose? Where does this pain belong?
Will this bridge of corn, blood, and feathers be enough to take me anywhere else?

Where can I rest this memory and where can I hang this shattered history written beneath my skin?
What horizons are possible for this body/territory of mine? What horizon?...