The Positions sector of Art Basel Miami Beach is a pallet cleanser amongst the gravitas of the rest of the fair. Designated to highlight emerging galleries and artists, inspired conversations take place in each of the pocket-sized booths. In the south-east corner at P01, Mexico City based gallery Llano captured the moment with the work of Diego Vega Solorza, a 34-year-old choreographer who narrates his life experiences through a mastery of movement practice. His contemporary dance piece, BASOTEVE, took form in the shape of printed photo stills, video, and sculpture. The piece delves into the adversity and triumphs Vega Solorza faced growing up queer in the rural town of Basoteve, MX; an expression of pain and strength told in motion. Stark and subversive imagery lured fair goers to the booth, marking it as one of the most memorable and powerful showings of the year. These compound into an interesting gamble to transform a recorded impression of a work into an offering for curators and private collectors, one that is overwhelmingly successful.

BASOTEVE runs for 20 minutes on a monitor on the outward facing wall of the booth. Its screen is split into a diptych featuring two distinct stories that fold together in the same timeline – each side framed around a pommel horse created from pristine metal bars and two black leather saddles. The hardware on the saddles is ornate, authentic to the region where Vega Solorza is from. The artist performs alone in the nude on the left screen, covered in a thick red blood-like substance that drips onto the black floor. Solorza’s brutal choreography, set to an atonal score filled with electric pulses and flares of shrilling feedback, speaks to the notion of survival of his authenticity, despite being skinned alive by the pressure of conforming to the tropes of societal norm. Bandages are also wrapped around his footwear, platformed heels. His head is wrapped in a hood—reminiscent of (if not wholly) a gimp mask—that drapes around thin bandages. His pain is palpable. On the right side of the screen, the artist is joined by a body double. Any recognizable features on either person are masked. They’re dressed in matching off-white bodytight hooded suits with a thick zipper running down the back, leather chaps, and riding boots, a costume laden with various historical movements in queer culture plugged into the interface of sexuality. Juxtaposed with the other scene, the setting is the same but pristinely clean.

As Solorza and his double dance, their bodies contort, trading dominance as if to represent the expectations of masculinity as a fight. There is a moment of sheer torture, where one dancer is standing on the saddles, towering above, while the other writhes on the floor, mouth agape as if to let out a silent scream. Here, the machismo energy falls when the dancers take to the saddle of the horse. The film cuts to the performers adorned with tailored leather jackets, grinding on the saddles. Solorza’s two selves face one another and embrace, submitting to desire.

While dance has been platformed beyond the theatre innumerable times, it’s rare to see a piece of contemporary choreography like BASOTEVE take the market stage. Questions arise: Can you commodify a gesture? What does collecting choreography look like? Does the impression of a performance hold more value than the performance itself? The gallery’s approach was clever, with the pommel horse available along with the video as a singular piece, recontextualizing a recording into a mix of physical and digital. The video itself was for sale as a 3 edition offering. Key stills printed as photographs were sold in two different sizes, singularly and in sets, all in extremely limited editions of either three or five prints. These successfully appear as objects to covet, as Vega Solorza prepares to perform an hour long live version of the piece again in Mexico City, which will further bolster interest in collecting the artist’s work.