World Premiere of "The Mutables" by Kat Mustatea at HERE Arts Center

ABOUT THE EVENT

What is said cannot be unsaid. What is unspoken is alluded to, wrapped in metaphor, layered in allegory, gestured at. What is gestured at, is not silence.

THE MUTABLES weaves cutting edge technology for speech production with mythographies of the feminine monstrous to expand and reorient our intuitions for what can be put into words. Using a unique sensor-based instrument for embodied speech called BodyMouth, this eerie performance intertwines bodies and vocals as dancers sound out words phoneme-by-phoneme by enacting specific gestures in sequence, turning the body quite literally into a mouth. Situated at the edge of experimental opera and dance, the piece is inspired by female forest creatures in Balkan folklore called ielele whose voices were said to lead men astray and who could render listeners instantly mute. The project is a meditation on the question What does it mean to have a voice?—a provocation to the bleak histories of totalitarian rule where alternate modes of speech became an urgent form of survival and resistance.

Direction & Script: Kat Mustatea

Music: Kamala Sankaram

Cast: Rocky Duval, Marie Lloyd Paspe, Felix Bryan, Lo Poppy, Jonathan Colafrancesco

Creative Technology: Yonatan Rozin

Associate Choreography: Marie Lloyd Paspe

Featured Fashion: Camelia Skikos

Styling & Additional Costume Design: Paulina Olivares

Producer: Alex Darby

Creative Production: The Hybrid Studio

Lead Image: Bogdan Pastor

More details about RSVP are available HERE.

PERFORMANCES:

October 8, 2025 at 8:30pm

October 9, 2025 at 8:30pm

October 10, 2025 at 8:30pm

October 11, 2025 at 8:30pm

October 12, 2025 at 8:30pm

PROJECT SUPPORT: 

"The Mutables" comes from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and the Romanian Cultural Institute New York. The BodyMouth instrument was developed with support and residencies from Barnard Movement Lab, Onassis ONX, Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, New York University’s ITP/IMA Program, Nancy Manocherian’s the cell theatre, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kat Mustatea is a transmedia playwright and artist whose experiments with language, live art, and the computational uncanny, articulate the absurdities of being human in an increasingly algorithmic world. Her work has been presented at a variety of venues, including New York Live Arts (NY), Roulette (NY), The Cube at Virginia Tech (VA), The Ferst Center (GA), Ars Electronica (AT), New Images Festival (FR), and CPH:DOX (DK), among others. Her project BodyMouth, an instrument for embodied speech, was a finalist for the Lumen Prize and the Guthman Prize, and was featured nationally on CBS Sunday Morning, Harper’s Magazine, and Gizmodo. She heads EdgeCut Arts, a curatorial experiment at the intersection of performance and digital culture, which also includes Edge Space, a space co-op for live performance in SoHo, New York City.

ABOUT THE INSTRUMENT

BodyMouth, created by Kat Mustatea is a one-of-a-kind instrument for embodied speech. Bridging choreography, language, and computation this bespoke instrument enables performers to “speak” through sequenced gestures. BodyMouth was a finalist for the 2024 Guthman Prize for new musical instruments, the 2024 Lumen Prize, and a Creative Capital award, and has been featured on CBS Sunday Morning, in Harper’s Magazine, and Gizmodo.

PHOTO GALLERY: OPENING NIGHT I OCTOBER 8, 2025