Shaun El C. Leonardo is an American artist and performer best known for his work exploring the relationships between masculinity, sports, race, and culture.
Through his artistic practice he interrogates "hyper-masculine figures" ranging from athletes to superheroes and explores the influence they have on shaping ideas of manhood.
[4] Leonardo's work often focuses on childhood role models, popular icons and cultural stereotypes and how they influence our perception of what it means to be a man.
During the performance, Leonardo takes the audience through four moves: 1) How to break an arm hold; 2) how to reestablish distance if someone grabs your shirt; 3) how to block a punch; "The final maneuver is the chokehold.
In the routine, the team forms a revolving circle around one player, the matador, would waits in the center of the ring.
Through the Bull in the Ring performance Leonardo explores the pressures young men have to face, to conform, and to prove their toughness.
[3][6][12] Shaun Leonardo's work has been featured in The New York Times, The Boston Globe, ArtForum, The New Yorker, Interview, The Village Voice, MoMA Ps1, and PAPERMAG[3][13][14] An exhibition of Leonardo's drawings of police killings of black and Latino boys and men at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland was cancelled after what the museum referred to as a "troubling community response".