

































Analysis of Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gómez Peña’s 
‘The Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey’

Rachelle Sanicharan
University of Toronto
FAS Canadian Studies Specialist

The performance The Couple in the Cage: A 
Guatinaui Odyssey by Coco Fusco and 
Guillermo Gómez Peña presents a piece 
mainly featuring two people where presented 
as a couple, from a fictional island called 
Guatinaui. The piece performed throughout 
the world from 1992 to 1994 and in a film in 
1993, is narrated from the perspectives of 
colonial experts who guide the audience 
through the supposed features of the island, 
its peoples and the roles the couple played in 
society. The performance was a response to 
the quincentennial of Columbus’ arrival in 
the Americas and sought to highlight parts of 
this history that are often ignored. In this 
way, one of the main objectives of the 
performance was to demonstrate the general 
idea of the Other, and how people from 
developed countries viewed indigenous 
communities.

A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Caribbean, Guatinaui 
Odyssey, Performance Art.

B I O

Rachelle is a fourth-year student as a Canadian Studies Specialist at the University of 
Toronto. She is an Indo-Guyanese Canadian woman who has a particular interest in 
researching, recording, and preserving her Indo-Caribbean culture.

© 2021 Rachelle Sanicharan
Caribbean Studies Students’ Union, Canada - https://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/cquilt/

                       This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution- ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 
                       To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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l 

    Coco Fusco and GUILLERMO GÓMEZ-PEÑA: The Couple in THE Cage: Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the 
              West.” Classroom - Art & Education, December 1, 2018. 
              https://www.artandeducation.net/classroom/video/244623/coco-fusco-and-guillermo-gmez-pea-the-couple-in-the
              -cage-two-undiscovered-amerindians-visit-the-west. 
    Behar, Ruth, and Bruce Mannheim. “The Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey.” Visual Anthropology Review 
               11, no. 1 (1995): 118–27. https://doi.org/10.1525/var.1995.11.1.118.  

      

      

 

2

1

The performance The Couple in the Cage: 
A Guatinaui Odyssey by Coco Fusco and 
Guillermo Gómez Peña presents a piece 
mainly featuring two people where 
presented as a couple, from a fictional 
island called Guatinaui. The piece 
performed throughout the world from 
1992 to 1994 and in a film in 1993, is 
narrated from the perspectives of colonial 
experts who guide the audience through 
the supposed features of the island, its 
peoples and the roles the couple played in 
society.  Throughout these performanc-
es—including some at reputable museums 
and similar [academic] venues global-
ly—the audience did not know that the 
couple in the cage that were being show-
cased, were conducting a performance 
piece. The performance was a response to 
the quincentennial of Columbus’ arrival in 
the Americas and sought to highlight parts 
of this history that are often ignored. In 
this way, one of the main objectives of the 
performance was to demonstrate the 
general idea of the Other, and how people 
from developed countries viewed indige-
nous communities. This includes consider-
ations for the gaps in Eurocentric concep-
tualization of authenticity, identity, and 
multiculturalism in a world that still views 
the ‘Other’ as people who need to be 
subjugated—often caged, controlled, and 
treated like animals. 

The performance allows for one to gain a 
deeper understanding of authenticity and 
how it is presented and perceived in the 
world. Something that was apparent 
throughout the film was the reaction of 
observers of the performances around the 
world really believed the story that was 
being told, and appeared to enjoy visualiz-
ing the entrapment of these two people 
from an undiscovered island. The perfor-
mance demonstrated art as “a form of 
studying the West’s construction of itself 
through its construction of the Other.”  
This was clear as the film demonstrated 
varying positionalities highlighting those 
who had a problem with two human 
beings being kept in cages and being 
treated like animals, and people of colour 
who related the exhibit to what their 
ancestors went through.

Whilst there were those who shared their 
disgust for such an exhibit, there were 
others who took photos with the two 
disguised performers, even going as far as 
to pay for the woman to dance for them or 
for the man to tell a story in what was 
presented as the language of Guatinaui. In 
response, the performers did things like 
listing cities and places while mixing in 
Spanish and made up words. These actions 
demonstrate how the label of Other was 
used to justify the treatment the two 
performers received. In addition, the cage 
had things such as a tv and a radio. With 
these tools, the performers made a mock-
ery of the whole ideology of the piece by 

1 2

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45

    Coco Fusco and GUILLERMO GÓMEZ-PEÑA: The Couple in THE Cage: Two Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the 
              West.” Classroom - Art & Education, December 1, 2018. 
              https://www.artandeducation.net/classroom/video/244623/coco-fusco-and-guillermo-gmez-pea-the-couple-in-the
              -cage-two-undiscovered-amerindians-visit-the-west. 
    Stith, Nathan. “The Performative Nature of Filmed Reproductions of Live Performance.” Theatre Symposium 19, no. 1 
(2011): 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1353/tsy.2011.0009. 
      

      

 

4

3

dancing to Rap music and watching TV. 
The idea of authenticity was pushed aside 
because of how they were being presented 
by ‘experts. 

Coco Fusco and Guillermo Gómez Peña 
used parody as a key feature of the perfor-
mance, ‘othering’ themselves for the 
audience, but the viewer of the film too 
sees the ‘colonial gaze’ and responses of 
the audience which too becomes a part of 
the art in the film.  This really allowed for 
a full picture of what was happening 
during the performance, and the mindset 
that people had when visiting the exhibit. 
Some people did question the legitimacy 
of the exhibit, but most people believed its 
content because historically, people being 
presented in cages is something that 
Western countries have done many times 
before. Sadly, many did not protest that 
two people were in cages, and instead 
actively participated, feeding them like 
they were animals and photographed them 
as if they were objects—paying to do so. 
This demonstrated the skewed perspective 
the western world has of people labelled 
as the Other which leads to them being 
treated as less than a person.

The idea behind creating such a perfor-
mance that is shown globally, is to demon-
strate the skewed perception that people 
have and to highlight the historical and 
contemporary labelling of people as the 
‘Other’ or subaltern. It is still very present 
in society today beyond the exhibit and its 

performance with people of colour often 
being asked where they are from, simply 
because of the colour of their skin, or 
being labelled as exotic because of their 
race. Similarly, this othering also occurs 
with cultural displays that are seen as 
antithesis to western dogma. In the film’s 
demonstration of people being hesitant 
when approaching the cage, it also 
reminds the viewer that the othering that 
occurs in broader society is often based on 
fear. Unfortunately, today, we still see how 
the “West” still fears the ‘Other’ and how 
they still seek to control and ‘cage’ people, 
even if it isn’t as apparent as it is shown in 
this performance.
 The performance, The Couple in 
the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey, addresses 
notions of authenticity by showcasing how 
the idea of the Other is presented to people 
throughout the world and how the story of 
the fictional characters was enough to 
convince many people that a new island 
and ‘type’ of people had been discovered. 
For many of these people that was enough 
to justify why these people were in cages, 
and that in itself demonstrates how 
othering often strips people of logic, 
morals, and humanity. 

1 2

3

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46

Behar, Ruth, and Bruce Mannheim. “The Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey.” 
       Visual Anthropology Review 11, no. 1 (1995): 118–27. 
        https://doi.org/10.1525/var.1995.11.1.118. 
“Coco Fusco and GUILLERMO GÓMEZ-PEÑA: The Couple in THE Cage: Two 
        Undiscovered Amerindians Visit the West.” Classroom - Art & Education, 
        December 1, 2018. 
        https://www.artandeducation.net/classroom/video/244623/coco-fusco-and-guillermo
        -gmez-pea-the-couple-in-the-cage-two-undiscovered-amerindians-visit-the-west. 
“The Couple in the Cage.” IMDb. IMDb.com, October 10, 1993. 
         https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0301136/. 
L'Clerc, Lee. “‘The Couple in the Cage: A Guatinaui Odyssey/ recording_1.’ .” 
         Lecture, n.d. 
Stith, Nathan. “The Performative Nature of Filmed Reproductions of Live Performance.” 
         Theatre Symposium 19, no. 1 (2011): 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1353/tsy.2011.0009. 
Taylor, Diana. “A Savage Performance: Guillermo Gómez-Peña and COCO Fusco's ‘
         Couple in the Cage.’” TDR/The Drama Review 42, no. 2 (1998): 160–80. 
         https://doi.org/10.1162/dram.1998.42.2.160. 

Works Cited

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