The Gills Beneath our Flesh (2019)

The Gills Beneath Our Flesh is a performance project that inhabits visions of a future Bay Area completely flooded by climate change. Inspired by the Scottish Selkie mythology of the half-woman half-seal, this project imagines trans-species prophecies of survival, seduction and loss in the murky waters that are rising to meet us.

Choreography & Video Editing by Octavio Rose Hingle

Dancer, Collaborator: Rafi Ruffino Darrow

Performed August 17, 2019 at SAFEhouse for the Arts, San Francisco 

Costume Design: Dalia Ortiz-Pon

Videography: Alex Senauke

Performance Footage: Mark McBeth

Music: Umfang

Photos by: Guerrilla Davis & Dalia Ortiz Pon

  • Octavio uses a wheelchair poses with their profile to the camera, backlit by a purple wash of light. Their face and lower legs is covered by a brown lyca and bubble wrap costume, revealing the skin of their torso and thighs
  • Dancers Octavio and Rafi lie on the floor; their manual wheelchairs becoming the shells of sea creatures lurking in the deep.
  • Octavio and Rafi dance while seated in their chairs; they wear white kn95 masks with mesh that falls onto their chests.
  • Rafi touches a wall while seated in their chair; behind them is a projection of plastic fabric on a chain link fence.
Two dancers face back to back and raise their arms upwards, extending two fingers towards the ceiling. ehind them is a projection of murky blue water; they wear swim caps & face masks with netting and beads.
Octavio lies on a bed of sea kelp; they wear a black Oakland raiders swimsuit, green plastic jewelry, and chains linked across their face. Around them trails a veil of old wired headphones.