If a slug crosses my path, I try my best not to step on it. But if slugs have perished at my hand, this is how I have killed them. Accidental. Unpleasant. But insignificant. The ordeal is over as it happens. A second. The squishy sensation under my foot, the splattered viscosity on the pavement, the short-lived twinge of wish-I-hadn’t-done-that. Death happened. Nothing happens. And so, I step on.
If I can say I have thought about slugs at all, this is the generous extent of it. That is, until our conference dinner.
Two performers. White tops. No bottoms. (Confessional note: when ‘warned’ about the nudity, I had envisioned the tops, not the bottoms). Walking –but not walking, more like bouncing forward in jerking steps– towards the centre of the dining room. Making their way, one from either end of the room, between the round dining tables. The various reactions from the guests already a part of the performance. One in particular: flushed cheeks, wide eyes, determinedly detached expression. Others adopted a quintessentially academic Rodinesque strategy: hand on chin, deeply thoughtful, rarely focusing their eyes on anything other than the safe monotony of the floor. Many others visibly gave in to the unexpected joys of the sensuous-ugly proposition of queer sexuality through the improbable embodiment of slugs.
Once at the centre of the room, the performers held each other’s gaze, swayed their bodies from side to side: measuring each other, studying their movements, feeling one another. A slow, sluggish choreography of mutual discovery. After a few moments, they dressed their bottom halves in white boxers. And then – then came the slime. Lots of it. Pouring the viscous substance down their bodies, they completed their promised metamorphosis into slugs. Now slimed up, they continued the slippery grinding-rubbing-pressing against each other.
The performance, however, is called ‘50 Ways To Kill a Slug’. So, ultimately, we witnessed the demise of our sluggy performers, who went on to die at times humorous deaths (they lip-sync a voiceover of a couple plotting a mass-murder in their slug-ridden garden). In this shortened 10-minute version of the original performance, our slugs finished their encounter with each other and their respective downfalls by defiantly biting off (and chewing?) a bouquet of flowers. With the flowers tossed aside, and our slugs intertwined (in death or vitality?), the show ends with them shimmying their way out of the performance stage.
As academics, we have a trained tendency to squeeze an analysis out of everything (‘Was the frenetic cleaning of the slime after the performance part of the performance?’ Not really, but then again, isn’t everything that happens in a performance kind of part of it?). In this instance, though, I don’t want to analyse. I choose to give myself to the spectral viscosity of the slime, and the sensual slowness of the slugs.
If I ever step on a slug again, something might just happen.
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I would like to thank the luminous Tamsin Hurtado Clarke for curating this wonderful evening for us. Make sure to check out the wonderful work of PAPAYA Fest (@papayafest).
The performance is titled ‘50 Ways To Kill a Slug’, and it was performed by the amazing Dre Spisto & Joana Nastari (@drespisto and @joananastari)
Our evening was followed by more joy and dance with the wonderful band of Indira Román & Aji Pa’ Ti (@indira.roman @indira.ajipati) and later on by the unexpected mixes by Panther Panther! (@pantherpantherav)
Erika Teichert
Erika is a Lecturer in Latin American Studies at the University of Bristol and one of the organisers of SLAS 2025. She is a scholar of visual culture and politics in Latin America. Her recent research specialises in the intersection between visual culture and activist politics in contemporary Argentina.
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