By Darkam & Beto

Santa Sangre Body Rituals Manifesto

Let us be quiet for a second and listen to the Gods sleeping. They sleep through the daylight madness and the hidden obligations. Their yawns loud enough to open canyons and generate stars. Dreams made of sticky pollen, bees embroidering eternal paths. There, the bedtime stories are made of ancient ropes, each knot its own tale. There, blood is the most precious gift, and it’s used to write ancient stories.

Santa Sangre Body Rituals

Darkam and Beto (Kukulcan Rituals) make the two pillars of Santa Sangre Body Rituals. Their different backgrounds and perspectives join to create a parallel world in which their art, performances, rituals, and music yield something that is larger than life.

Beto has Mexican roots, and is deeply connected to his pre-Hispanic heritage. He started experimenting with body suspensions 14 years ago and has worked in 38 different countries as a performer, private body suspender, and lecturer. He also does hand poked tattoos and scarifications.

Darkam started as a piercer 15 years ago in Italy while conducting her research in visual arts, where she studied drawing and illustration. She currently works as an illustrator, comic artist, and tattooist.Hermetic magic, alchemic symbolism, and the ancient pagan rituals have always been a great source of learning and inspiration for her.

In 2015 the Santa Sangre Body Rituals project sprang to life. Mixing symbolism from different backgrounds, they reinterpret ancient legends and folklore. Old tales reflect our archetypes, thus bringing us to the very foundation of human perception.

Through their thorough narrative structure, detailed research, and accurate cultural and anthropological stories, they turn their performances into an enchanting moment for the audience.

But all this works as a trigger; a way to achieve the contact within oneself, to our deepest emotions, those that are part of our human and individual history. These emotions are ingrained in us, central to our body, written in the blood, and bring with them an evocative force.

Each performance is unique and is never repeated the same way. Everything, from the costumes to the music, is carefully chosen to support the narrative.

When an audience is new to body modification practices, body suspension may be perceived as something brutal. This is why Santa Sangre Body Rituals like to play with opposites; to show that suspension is not only related to pain and suffering but that it can be a path to spiritual elevation:

• That blood can be a powerful offering, as it used to be in ancient times.
• That beauty can be found in the most unexpected places.
• That the red string that Japanese believe to connect souls, can be made of blood.

Santa Sangre Body Rituals mix visual arts as live paintings that extend beyond the given canvas such as during their unique collaboration with body suspending opera singer Joa Helgesson. They hope to continue bringing the shows to unfamiliar and academic contexts in the future.

www.santasangrebodyrituals.com