'Paseo para rastreras, reptiles y sinuosas', by La Merce

The performance Paseo para rastreras, reptiles y sinuosas [Walk for Creepers, Reptiles and Winders] explores identity and the states of being, queer politics through forms of agency, disinhibition and rematerialisation of the body, and ways of transcending and transfiguring the duality of the physical form and its representation.

The piece is about the demand to look after oneself, defend oneself from external labels, carve out indeterminate places, invoke gestures of a different kind, and defend oneself from and challenge hegemonic power. It is a pleasurable walk intended not to inform but to be seen, pretending or simulating.

As La Merce explains, “A face over the shoulder, the head tilted flirtatiously, the individual curved lines of the cheekbones, chin, neck and surface of the shiny skin lining up, the gently pursed lips, the arched eyebrows, the insolent sideways glance, the contained respiration seeking the light... affectation is always present; everything charms, here I am, waiting for your eyes.”

Marcos Matus, La Merce, was born in Santiago de Chile and has lived in Madrid since 2017. Identifying as a non-binary performance muse, they are passionate about the voguing scene, runway and different artistic languages (visual and performance). Their work straddles dance, performance and choreography, exploring binary identities in dissident corporalities, poetics and narratives in order to embrace their own situation and propose other ways of understanding the body. Their latest research questions how to transform that corporal territory into an agent, agency, become a language and re-establish the public space as a place for uniting what one does and the effect of what one does.

La Merce has a master's degree in Artistic Practices and Visual Culture jointly granted by ARTEA, University of Castile-La Mancha and Museo Reina Sofía. They are a dance graduate from Centro de Danza Espiral and have been an active member of Comunidad Escénica since 2020. They perform with Compañía La Phármaco, directed by Luz Arcas, and were nominated for the best performer prize at the 2022 edition of the SGAE Max Awards.

Show and artist information

• Performance: La Merce, Marcos Matus
• Accompanied by: Katherine Leyton, R.A.R.A plataforma
• Text: Kat, Vale, Alon, Viko, Merce
• Sound universe: Valentina Aguilera Muñoz
• Costumes and recording: Victoria Paz
• Installation: Alonso Morales
• In collaboration with: La Casa Encendida, Comunidad Escénica, Sala de Máquinas and Escena 311.

NOTICE: Strobe lights are used during the performance.