A Lecture-performance by Ingrid Hoelzl
A queerfeminist, transcultural re-reading of Afro-brazilian Candomblé and its Orisha of ancestrality, Iroko. With an introduction by Watutsi Joje, Candomblé Initiate, Egbé Oriṣa ketu, Alagbè and Babálawò.
Premiere: 23 October 2025, Zinnschmelze, Hamburg
Support: Hamburgische Kulturstiftung & Zinnschmelze
Local Collaborations: Lateinamerika-Zentrum, University of Hamburg; Fluctoplasma Festival 2025 “Visions Beyond the West”
International Collaborations: Universidade Federal de Bahia, Salvador de Bahia (UFBA), Universite Cote D’Azur, Nice.
PRODUCTION TEAM Concept & dramaturgy; script & text: Ingrid Hoelzl; Project direction & administration: General Humanity; Audiovisual postproduction & documentation: Carl Weidner; Technical direction: Sascha Hahnrath
PROJECT PARTICIPANTS Video & live performance: Ingrid Hoelzl / Moderation & dance (Omolu): Anna Maria Barbosa / Dance (Pombagira): Cristal Heins / Interviewees Salvador: Katya Gualter, Franklin Santos, Pai Mota Dary, Vóvó Cici de Oxalá / Camera Salvador: Lu Duccini; Kelvin Klay; Emerson Alan Correia / Camera Hamburg: Ingrid Hoelzl.
What does crossgender trance – the incorporation of a deity of a differeent gender during trance – have to do with Western notions of trans/gender identity? How might trance contribute to the deconstruction of the Western modernist notion of the self as an autonomous entity into a multiple self?
The queerfeminist performance addresses trance, gender and personal identity as a contribution to nonbinarism in intercultural dialog.
It is based on my research on trance/gender in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé religion, funded by the BKM/International Cultural Exchange, in particular the audiovisual material collected in Salvador da Bahia: interviews, (video) performances, trance and temple scenes. At the center is the tree god Iroko, symbol of ancestrality and virility, which I perform as gender-fluid (“tree” is feminine in Portuguese): as a place of the feminine power of desire/bearing, without which there would be no anzestrality. As I learned in Bahia, incorporation through an Orisha (deified ancestor) has no skin color or gender. It is an expression of a living relationship between the living, the dead and the gods.
GENERAL HUMANITY 