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Try Walking in My Hooves

Art walk with mini concert

Animal rights, climate activism, music and queer feminism - spiced up with a good dose of drag: that's Soya the Cow. The alter-ego of performance artist, musician and activist Daniel Hellmann, who lives in Berlin and Zurich, blurs the boundaries between male and female, human and cow, and manages the balancing act between a serious desire to change the world and a humorous sense of lightness. After appearing at animal rights and climate protests, in theatres and art festivals, and most recently on The Voice of Germany, the singing drag cow invites the audience to re-experience their hometown with a fresh pair of eyes.

For Try Walking in my Hooves, Soya the Cow takes the audience on a philosophical walk through the city. The focus is deliberately on the presence of non-human bodies: dogs walking their friends. Pigeons that have transformed a monument into their toilet. Bodies of killed animals that are carried through the streets by humans as food or clothing. Soya the Cow invites a change of perspective that challenges visual habits and self-image. In a playful and musical way, she calls for a new constitution of the relationship between humans and other animals, based on our
common animality.

Credits

Artistic Direction, Concept, Text, Music, Performance: Daniel Hellmann / Soya the Cow
Diffusion: Florence Francisco
Administration: Regula Spirig

A production by 3art3 with the support of Stadt Zürich Kultur, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Migros Kulturprozent, Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung

Audience Reactions

I'm still soaking in your performance yesterday. I was really touched by your radical and confronting posture and your power. Thank you very much and bravo for all that.

Wonderful ride with Soya the cow, touching and disturbing! Thank you.

Hi Soya, you have a wonderful voice. Thank you for performing. Love your beautiful soul.

Hi, I hope you are well and that you were able to rest after your performances! I am writing to you because I attended your performance yesterday afternoon, which I found very inspiring. The performance was very powerful, poignant, and at the same time so caring. I felt strong during those moments guided by you. Thank you so much for changing my perspective on the city. Thank you for your moving songs and your beautiful voice. Thank you for your activism and the power you gave me to fight for values that are so important. Thank you for your kindness and the inclusiveness that you have advocated. Thank you for being who you are and thank you for these fights. I wish you all the best.

Hello, I saw you at the Bessière Bridge and I thought your performance was amazing! Bravo girl!

Hi Soya, thanks again for your performance today and for opening our eyes even wider. You really touched me!

My mom and I think it's beautiful how you sing and we love what you do for the animals. We send you lots of kisses!

Dear Soya, thank you so much for this engaging and introspective walk. It was a pleasure to listen to your enlightened words and to welcome your positions and reflections, more than necessary and so obvious. As for the concert, I don't have enough words to tell you how much it touched me. Especially the last song. Lots of love and a good night.

Thank you so much for yesterday. It was incredible, touching, full of love and kindness. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Thank you for this moment last night of pure tenderness! With humor, talent (heel hihi) and beauty! Good luck with the rest.

Your message was so inspirational, non violence, impermanence, emotional bypassing. When you talked about animals and their culture, it reminded me of a documentary I watched years and years ago about animals are 'other nations'. I didn't even know what I was going to, my friend brought me... Anyway thanks, really loved your offering.

Bravo and thank you for these moments of poetry, art and reflection!