In this research project, Ribeiro asks the question: How does the stereotype of "hyperbolic virility" operate in the construction of the Black man? Hyperbolic virility is a critical concept that describes the compulsive exaggeration of "masculine" attributes (strength, domination, sexual potency, insensitivity) as a social mandate, especially in contexts where masculinity is racialised.

Ribeiro wishes to open this research for the creation of a stage piece for five to seven performers. This new project stands as a performative ceremony where Afro-Diaspora men undertake the reverse journey to the mandate of masculinity. The somatic practices for this new work function as decoding systems to map the pains inscribed in the flesh by gender mandates. Synchronised breathing, mantras transformed into ancestral laments, sweat mingling with shaving oil: everything converges in the creation of a liminal territory where masculinity, that violent fiction, can finally crumble.

These practices that Ribeiro incorporates into the research, Tantra Yoga, and breathwork emerge not as spiritual fads but as tools of bodily liberation that the artist, privately, began to practice. Here, these disciplines strip off their exotic aura to reveal themselves as radical technologies of reoccupation of the racialised body: a body historically kidnapped by colonial images of hyper virility. The performers' voices deep, fractured, ancestral, enter to weave a dissonant score. Yoruba chants merge with spirituals harmonies, suppressed cries burst into eloquent silences.

This showcase presents the outcome of a creation residency hosted by Tipperary Dance as part of our SPLASH International Exchange programme. In partnership with La Caldera, Barcelona.