Madrid (Spain), 2023

To Be Born Again is a ritual of rebirth, an homage to the liquid womb that nurtures and shelters. Inspired by the Yoruba cosmovision, this performance invokes Yemayá, goddess of the sea and primordial mother. From her waters, the body emerges, held by nets—like a fate woven before time itself. It is a spell against oblivion, an offering to the creative force of water, and a tribute to pre colonial religion, reclaiming silenced memories.

Glez is the woman who is born and reborn. Her bare skin is fertile earth; her torso is the first taste of freedom; her skirt is the echo of the waves. Every fold evokes the foam that shields and embraces, the sea’s caress when it protects, its fury when unleashed. She is Yemayá, and she is all mothers. She is water—nourishing, blessing, surviving exile—a memory that refuses to be silenced.

Live music cuts through the space like an ancient call, a song that vibrates in the body. Dance becomes both ritual and resistance: swaying between the ocean’s softness and the surge of the tide, between violence and embrace. In that sacred instant, water surges into the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza—not as absence, but as a powerful echo of what we once were and what we reclaim. This act is also an ecological ode to the sea, a reminder of the urgency to preserve its legacy, protect natural resources, and reconnect with the earth in a conscious, respectful way.

Because to be born is to remember. Name what was silenced and summon back the nearly stolen rites. To Be Born Again is more than a performance—it is an incantation, a fissure through which the ocean seeps, where memory asserts itself with the force of water. It is feminism; it is a body reborn without shame. In its flow, womanhood and femininity intertwine like waves, reminding us that water is not only origin—it is also destiny.

María Pérez Marín