“A family fueled by emotion and passion for what we do and what we do for each other. It stands for a bigger transformation in our hearts, economies and ethics.“We’re actually a family,” she beams. ![]() There us something magical in the transformation. “The mask allows you to be more direct, and it gives me courage. “Soya is a fool, like the king’s courts of old,” he says. Mostly, Soya wants to have a conversation in a strange and fantastic way that lowers people’s guards and gets them to open up. Hellmann also hopes to hear from other Texas advocates and connect it the art scene during his week here. While in the state, Hellmann plans to hook up with Rowdy Girl Sanctuary in Waelder, a place where cows can live wild and free that was started by a former cattle rancher who grew disillusioned with the meat industry. It can be humor, but also just letting people be emotional with painful topics.” There is something very healing with that practice, and when I perform, I transmit that spark. Soya helps me lift myself up and find my motivation. There is so much oppression, but it’s made completely invisible. ![]() The relationship humans have with animals is so dire. “It opens a space where people are more willing to tackle topics that are not easy. “Soya is completely over the top and very emotional and I think that it helps people connect because she is a fantasy creature,” says Hellmann. He cited the recent fights against reproductive rights as a place of cognitive dissonance, assigning personhood to clumps of cells with less sentience than the pigs who provide our bacon. ![]() Through the persona of Soya, Hellmann finds that people are more open to hear about things such as industrial farming and the general poor way humans treat animals that have intelligence comparable to human children. The show at the Goethe Pop-Up will be a combination of his play, raps, piano songs, and audience interaction. It’s hard to fight for these causes when you feel like you’re not advancing, so little victories like that help.” “They kill them after three years, even in organic farms,” says Hellmann, who often works with local animal rescues when he travels. Hellmann has also done some far more daring an esoteric performance pieces like entertaining activists who chained themselves to the gates of a German sausage factory and doing a show at an egg farm on the condition that he get to adopt three hens. These include a play called “Dear Human Animals” that debuted in Zurich in 2020 and an album called “Purple Grass” in 2021. When he returned to Europe, he began crafting the Soya persona, a queer, vegan, feminist activist that used a variety of methods to spread her message. Soya was born four years ago while Hellmann was living in San Francisco and absorbing the way drag culture and activism intersected. I have a clear idea of how I see the world, but I want to see how others do, too.” We are all little human beings on this planet, and I’m open to learn. I want to see what happens when I bring my cowself to Texas. “Texas has a worldwide reputation from the worst to the best, and there’s a visual imagery that is like an adventure. “I’m excited to dive into the cowboy universe,” says Hellmann. These two forces will meet at the MATCH Box 3 in a one-night performance and a gallery exhibition at the Goethe Pop-Up in Rice Village that runs through June 30. Performance artist Daniel Hellmann (he/they) from Zurich, Switzerland is famous for challenging everything we know about human relationships with animals by transforming into a cow-drag queen named Soya (she/they). ![]() Texas is a land famous for cows and the boys who turn them into steaks and college football mascots. Daniel Hellman is Soya the Cow Photo: Courtesy Daniel Hellman
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |