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Generations
The Helix Queer Performance Network formally ended its run at the end of 2020, but our flagship program, La MaMa’s Squirts, will continue in a new form. Stay tuned for more info, and thank you to all of the artists and audiences we’ve worked with over the years!
Announcing La MaMa’s Squirts 2020
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Presents A Helix Queer Performance Network Event LA MAMA’S SQUIRTS: GENERATIONS OF QUEER PERFORMANCE December 18-19, 2020 Curated by Alexander Paris Streaming Friday and Saturday at 8PM EST Free Admission; Suggested Donation RSVP HERE Featuring Performances By: Basit, Starr Busby, Anne Cuntyham, Ena Da, Jeremy O. Harris, Soo Intoit, Julie J, Daniel Alexander Jones, Kyle Carrero Lopez, Junior Mintt, Alexander Paris, Richard Perez, Lorelei Ramirez, Ianne Fields Stewart, Mthr Trsa and more… Each year, La MaMa’s Squirts gathers the most exciting voices from New York City’s queer performance world, across the generations. In this year’s live-streaming Squirts event, emerging artist Alexander Paris curates Reflections 2020–a weekend of queer introspection at a moment of global precarity. On the first evening–Friday, December 18th–Paris will present reflections from a wildly diverse mix of 20 queer artists of multiple generations, genres and aesthetics, including Ty Defoe, K8 Hardy, Jeremy O. Harris, Lorelei Ramirez and Pamela Sneed. Each of them will reflect upon who they are at this historical crossroads, as global fascism attempts to consolidate its grasp, as neoliberalism attempts to reclaim its dominance and as domestic movements for liberation are reshaping the cultural landscape. The following night will reflect upon those reflections, as Paris engages Guggenheim Award-winning performing artist Daniel Alexander Jones in an evening-length, hybrid dialogue/performance about what it means to look within when the outside world brings so much chaos to our doorsteps. CURATOR BIO Alexander Paris is a multidisciplinary performer, writer, and occasional existentialist. The work they create normally lives at some intersection of autofiction and surrealism. They enjoy world building, deep honesty, high camp, and mess. In 2019 they had artistic fellowships with the Performance Project at University Settlement and Clubbed Thumb. A reading of their play Suzanne happened as a part of La Mama’s Experiments series. Before the quarantine they were working out new material in the Brooklyn comedy and nightlife scenes. Now, in the middle of the pandemic, they are learning what is most important to them. ABOUT LA MAMA’S SQUIRTS For eight years, La MaMa’s Squirts: Generations of Queer Performance has been the flagship program of the The Helix Queer Performance Network, and while the festival will continue at La MaMa, Helix reaches its conclusion this year. Founded in 2013 by playwright/performer Dan Fishback, Helix has been a collaboration between La MaMa, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics, with Fishback serving as director. At La MaMa, Helix has previously presented seven annual iterations of La MaMa’s Squirts, created by Fishback and featuring hundreds of queer artists over the years.
Graphics by Eliana Mullins
NEEDING IT: Solo Performance in Queer Community A Helix Queer Performance Network Workshop Instructed by Heather María Ács Wednesdays, October 23 - December 18, 2019, 7-9:30pm BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange (421 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn) APPLICATIONS DUE SEPTEMBER 6, 2019 at 11:59pm WORKSHOP DESCRIPTION: Are you hungry for a queer-centered space to develop and explore live performance? In this class, we will study queer performance practices and histories (shall we say “quistories?”) in New York City. This class will introduce new techniques while strengthening participants’ natural talents, so artists from any discipline and level of experience are welcome, including those brand new to performance. Each week, we will explore different queer artists and arts movements along with exercises, games, and techniques related to their work, including, but not limited to performance art, theatre, film, movement, literary arts, drag, and interdisciplinary performance. We will discuss the interplay between the individual artist and a broader sense of collectivity, especially as it relates to queer communities’ struggles against intersectional oppressions, while celebrating queer ingenuity and resilience. Queer people have always been foundational to cultural production, and often forerunners in major artistic movements. It is important that we learn our “quistories” in order to continue these artistic legacies. We are not just cultural consumers. Queer people are, have always been, and always will be culture creators. The instructor, performer/writer/director, Heather María Ács will work closely with students to identify individual topics of interest and personal artistic goals to help students create passionate, risk-taking performance. Classes meet Wednesdays, October 23 – December 11 from 7:00-9:30 pm, culminating in a public performance of original student work on December 18th. Participants are required to attend all workshop sessions including the tech and showing. NEEDING IT was originally developed by Dan Fishback as a project of the Helix Queer Performance Network. PERKS: Each student will receive a stipend of $250 and 10 hours of free rehearsal space to use during the 8-week workshop period. Additional rehearsal hours over the 10 will be billed at the discounted rate of $5/hour (normally $12/hour) during the workshop period. WORKSHOP SESSIONS: Wednesday, October 23, 2019, 7:00-9:30 pm Wednesday, October 30, 2019, 7:00-9:30 pm Wednesday, November 6, 2019, 7:00-9:30 pm Wednesday, November 13, 2019, 7:00-9:30 pm Wednesday, November 20, 2019, 7:00-9:30 pm *NO CLASS November 27, 2019 (Thanksgiving) Wednesday, December 4, 2019, 7:00-9:30 pm Wednesday, December 11, 2019, 7:00-9:30 pm SHOWING AND TECH REHEARSAL: TECH: Tuesday, December 17. 2019, 4:00 – 10:00 pm and Wednesday, December 18, 2019, 2:00 – 6:00 pm SHOWING: Wednesday, December 18th at 8:00 pm ELIGIBILITY: This class is ideal for people who are seeking structure and/or community in their performance practice, new to performance, interested in trying a new mode of performance, looking for alternatives to college/university settings, and/or seeking to infuse their performance practice with a deeper political awareness. Students of ALL races, genders, ages, sizes, and class backgrounds are encouraged to apply. Students MUST be prepared to work extensively and rigorously on assignments outside of class. Participants must be able to commit to all sessions including the tech and showing and state this commitment in their application. Students do not have to identify as queer/lgbt, as long as they identify as being part of an queer/lgbt community. NOTE: individuals currently enrolled in a college/university program are not eligible. ACCESSIBILITY: BAX is located on the second and third floors and does not have an elevator. If you need assistance or have further questions regarding the BAX Building, please email [email protected]. APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS:
*Application Format: Applications to be submitted via email to [email protected].
*Please address your email to the instructor, Heather María Ács.
*Explain why you want to take this class, share a brief history of your artistic pursuits, and/or your involvement with queer/lgbt communities. If possible, please include any documentation of previous work (writing samples, photos, links to videos, audio files, etc), although such documentation is NOT necessary if you do not have it. You will not be judged by the quantity or stature of your achievements, or the quality of the documentation.
*If you do not identify as queer/lgbt, please explain how you relate to queer community or queer performance tradition.
*Be specific and honest. Ideal applicants will use this introductory email to show their passion and hunger for the work. Do you NEED IT? Tell us why. 8 students will be selected for the residency. The curators will be looking toward building a cohort of artists rather than simply choosing individual artists.
*Include your PHONE NUMBER.
*Send your email to [email protected] with the subject heading “NEEDING IT APPLICATION – FALL 2019.”
*Include your letter in the body of the email. Do NOT attach your letter as a separate document. Your letter MUST NOT EXCEED 500 WORDS
APPLICATIONS ARE DUE SEPTEMBER 6TH 2019 @ 11:59 pm. (Photocredit: Shameless Photography)
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club Presents A Helix Queer Performance Network Event La MaMa’s SQUIRTS: Generations of Queer Performance Curated by Cecilia Gentili, Mizz June and Charlene Incarnate May 31-June 2, 2019 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7PM The Ellen Stewart Theater at La MaMa, 66 East 4th Street, NYC Reserve FREE tickets at lamama.org
May 31: Curated by Cecilia Gentili, Featuring: Julia Rose, Ash RT Yergens, Auset Bennu aka AB, Linda LaBeija and Suzy Shock June 1: Curated by Mizz June, Featuring: Mizz June, Olympia Perez of Black Trans Media, Princess Sasha Fierce, and The Violence. Hosted by drag ally Banjela Davis, with a presentation by FIERCE! NYC and very special guest Miss Major Griffin-Gracy
June 2: Curated by Charlene Incarnate, Featuring: Remy Black, Image Object, Lucia Honey, and more Each year, La MaMa’s Squirts gathers the most exciting voices from New York City’s queer performance world, across the generations. This year, three trans women artists with deep community roots will each craft a night of the festival, marking the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising. Helix is a collaboration between La MaMa, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics.
Graphic Design by Lauren Denitzio
BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange Presents
A Helix Queer Performance Network Event:
NEEDING IT: Solo Performance in Queer Community
Wednesday, December 12, 2018 @ 8:00pm
Hosted by and based on a class facilitated by Heather María Ács General Seating, Sliding Scale: $20 / $15 / $10 / $5, Tix HERE.
A Showcase of Student Works in Progress, Featuring: Debayani Kar Chewy Hannah Yukon Moréna Wells nicole shanté olaiya olayemi Oskar Sinclair sára abdullah In this unique workshop, students develop their own material while studying the history of queer performance in NYC, and meeting the great queer artists of our day. NEEDING IT was originally developed by Dan Fishback, and is part of an ongoing education initiative of The Helix Queer Performance Network, a collaboration between La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, The Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics and BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange seeking to nurture queer performers, empower queer communities and celebrate the legacy and lineage of queer performance in New York City. This program was made possible thanks to the generous support of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. ACCESSIBILITY: BAX is located on the second and third floors and does not have an elevator. If you need assistance or have further questions regarding the BAX Building, please email [email protected].
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club Presents A Helix Queer Performance Network Event La MaMa’s SQUIRTS: Generations of Queer Performance Curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Linda LaBeija and Shannon Matesky June 8-10, 2018 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7PM The Downstairs at La MaMa, 66 East 4th Street, NYC Tickets $20 / $15 Students & Seniors Ten advanced $10 tickets available for each night Tickets at 66 East 4th Street, NYC or at lamama.org or 212-352-3101 June 8: Q(here)majiQUE, curated by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, featuring Antonio Ramos, iele paloumpis, Jasmine Hearn and Madison Krekel June 9: The LaBeija Showcase, curated by Linda LaBeija, featuring The House of LaBeija June 10: Four Questions, curated by Shannon Matesky, featuring Regie Cabico, Gary Champi, Aviva Jaye, Ni'Ja Whitson and Shannon Matesky For the sixth year in a row, The Helix Queer Performance Network gathers some of the most exciting voices from New York City’s queer performance world, across the generations. Over three nights, three curators sculpt the fabric of queer community to pose questions, honor legacies and ignite the present. Helix is a collaboration between La MaMa, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics.
Looking Back at Lesbifiesteras and Burlesquimeras: Queer Women Searching for Space in mid-2000s Mexico City
By Islandia
April 25, 2017
In the mid-2000s, the small group of queer women friends I was a part of had grown sick of spending so much time at “ladies nights” in the Zona Rosa, Mexico City’s quasi-official gay ghetto: these were lesbian events at gay men’s nightclubs and bars. There were a few queer women oriented nightspots and “fiestas de mujeres” (code for invitation only lesbian house parties) in Mexico City at the time, but not as many, as regular or as inexpensive as “ladies night;” it seemed these were the most abundant nightlife options for lesbians at the time. Designed to attract a niche clientele of women on otherwise slow weeknights, the bathrooms could be dirty, the beer could be warm, and the shows were a mistranslation of the Mexican gay men’s party protocol of drag queen number followed by a muscle-boy strip show, to a chicas version of the same drag queen act followed by a strip show starring women called gogas. Though many of us found it wasn’t really a lesbian-friendly concept, and felt uncomfortable in the face of rumors that the performers “hated lesbians”, a significant percentage of the crowd appeared to love the show.
Eager for nighttime fun and short on cash, my small circle of friends and I spent a lot of time at these events, held, as they were, on Wednesday or Thursday nights. Getting up to a weekday’s work the morning after, we’d curse having done it (again). Thinking and talking about the unfairness of the dynamic, it became clear the grim nightscape we inhabited was a direct product of a gendered economy and politics of nightlife in gay ghettos and urban spaces in general. By the same token, we understood that if we wanted to create an alternative, we could never ever expect to make a profit. So, we began to consider lesbian party organizing; being enrolled in Humanities academics at the UNAM’s Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, as most of us were at the time, a knack for lost causes and love of cheap thrills came naturally.
Saturday Night Parties as a Political Project
We called our effort Meras efímeras, a phrase that does not actually make much sense in Spanish, and roughly translates to “the mere ephemeral women”. Initially there were five of us, Anahí, Sandra, Chichis Glam, Artemisa and myself (Islandia). The first opportunity to have a party came up when Artemisa’s grandmother went on a long trip at the end of 2005, and we could access her rooftop patio from Artemisa’s apartment. Finding an affordable physical space in which to have such an event had been (and would remain) most challenging part of our lesbifiestera project. Our mission was to host a themed monthly lesbian dance party (open to all) that was strictly on Saturday nights, and always included a performance, show, or presentation of some kind. Branding the initiative as a political one that reclaimed nighttime fun and queer performance as a lesbian “cause” infuriated some feminist lesbians, and was received as a welcome novelty by others. Chichis Glam and Artemisa created two original music and poetry shows: “Efímeros goces” (2006) and “Inés, yo con tu amor…” (2007) which attracted a lot of attention around Meras efímeras in queer cultural circles. Consequently, we received invitations to present the show or speak about party organizing at academic and political conferences such as the III Encuentro de Escritor@s sobre Disidencia Sexual e Identidades Sexo-Genéricas at the Universidad Veracruzana, as well as at artistic events such as the XVIII Semana Cultural Lésbico-Gay. Guest performers at our parties included lesbian theater troupe Las Hijas de Safo, and we co-organized with Kumbia Queers one of their first presentations in Mexico City at El Pasagüero.
Transition from Dance Floor to Stage
After a couple of years, the project took a turn when we met Old Ma Femme, a New York City based burlesque performer, who offered to teach us a workshop. While we didn’t expect to actually perform after the workshop, our teacher insisted we produce a public recital. To everyone’s surprise, the show was a success, and the energy generated there pushed us to create Burlesquimeras, a self-produced queer/punk/camp burlesque troupe that involved most of Meras efímeras but also some amateur newcomers such as Glitter and Gabina Estrella, as well as professional actress and cabaret siren Minerva Valenzuela “ladelcabaret.” And our teacher, Old Ma Femme, would sometimes plan her trips to Mexico to coincide with our presentations where she performed as headliner.
So, our organizing focus shifted from a dance party featuring a performance to a performance with an after-party. Efforts to find spaces for suitable for parties became efforts to find places to with a stage and/or changing room (no matter how improvised) and made the work of organizing that much more complicated. Burlesquimeras tended to attract a more mixed crowd of queers than lesbian-centered Meras efímeras events, but it was just as much of a not-for-profit venture.
We organized and improvised shows around the Mexico City in gay and non-gay bars such as La Vora, El Mancera, and Marrakech Salón at cultural centers such as El Faro de Oriente and Buzón de Arte, in coffee shops such as I Love Myself, and even in the lobby of the Virreyes Hostel. Burlesquimeras was also invited to perform at public events such as the rally after Oaxaca City’s Primera Marcha-Caléndula por la Diversidad Sexual, and the International AIDS Conference which was held in Mexico City in 2008.
Looking Back Ten Years Later
I should point out that in the mid-2000s online social media was not the organizing tool it is now; we relied on flyers that had to be designed, printed, photocopied and physically handed out (which would take us to the Zona Rosa and its “ladies nights” time after time), and a Yahoo! Groups mailing list. The work was exhilarating, but also exhausting, and the money made only covered basic expenses. Because of this and other personal factors, I slowly retired from performance and party organizing beginning in 2009. My compañeras also began to find themselves unable to keep up with the demands of the work, and Meras efímeras and Burlesquimeras disappeared towards 2012.
In June of 2016 we threw a belated ten-year anniversary party for Meras efímeras in Oaxaca City, where Chichis Glam has set up Casa Estudio Chichis Libres, a studio and B&B. On the same night, there were police attempts to violently remove unionized schoolteachers protesting neo-liberal impositions on the public education system that were camped out in the city’s main plaza. A few days later, our return to Mexico City was detoured by more violence towards the teachers union at the hands of the militarized police forces in Nochixtlán; six were killed while the government claims the police were not armed.
These violent events put party and performance, even if it is part of an anti-capitalist queer platform, in an ambivalent and troubled political situation. Meras efimeras and Burlesquimeras began just as Mexico declared an internal war on drugs in 2006 which has escalated and caused displacement, disappearance, and murder of hundreds of thousands of people. Our political aim ten years ago was to create space for celebrating lesbian and queer lives and creativity, but as the war is reaching a peak in 2017, I’m not sure how to celebrate queer life. As femicide/feminicidio and transfemicide/transfeminicidio∗ become a crisis, how does one have a lesbian dance party?
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*Transfemicidio is a term used in Latin America to indicate that transwomen are often targets of gender-based violence and murder not only because they are women but because of the additional stigma of being transgender or transsexual that targets them for violence and death. The term transfemicidio operates similarly to the ways that US-based transfeminist scholar Julia Serano frames trans-misogyny: indicating that transwomen face discrimination, oppression and violence not only because of a socially-normative hatred of women, but of the socially-normative hatred of transwomen specifically (See Serano's Trans-Misogyny Primer).
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Lesbifiesteras que buscaban diversión en la Ciudad de México de los dosmiles: Recordando a Meras efímeras y Burlesquimeras
Por: Islandia
A mediados de la década del 2000, en mi pequeño grupo de amigas lesbianas nos habíamos hartado de pasar tanto tiempo en las llamadas “ladies nights”, es decir, noches apartadas para un público femenino, en el barrio de antros gays de la Ciudad de México conocido como la Zona Rosa. En ese entonces existían unos cuántos centros nocturnos lésbicos, y no faltaban las clásicas “fiestas de mujeres” (léase: fiestas lésbicas en casa particular a la que se llega sólo por invitación). Sin embargo, parecía que la opción más inmediata y accesible en cuanto a diversión nocturna para un público de mujeres queer eran las dichas “ladies nights”. Puesto a que éstas solo sucedían entre semana (martes, miércoles, jueves o domingo) su objetivo era atraer a un nicho de consumo (mujeres, lesbianas) a los antros gay para hacer más rentables las noches menos concurridas por el público masculino. Dado lo anterior, era común encontrar baños sucios, cerveza al tiempo y shows que imitaban la dupla que se les presenta los hombres gay; o sea, un número travesti seguido por un espectáculo de desnudo, nada más que en este caso el segundo era interpretado por mujeres a las que se les conoce como gogas. A muchas nos parecía un tanto machista por tratarse de un espectáculo que entiende a la mirada erótica lésbica como simple traducción el deseo masculino a un cuerpo de mujer. Era particularmente incómodo cuando se escuchaban rumores de que las gogas “odiaban” a las lesbianas, y sin embargo, a buen porcentaje del público asistente parecía encantarles el show.
Pero ávidas de diversión nocturna a precio accesible, mi palomilla de amigas y yo pasamos mucho tiempo en estos eventos. Al día siguiente, levantarse para enfrentar un día laboral era una auténtica pesadilla y no sé cuántas veces habríamos jurado que no lo volveríamos a hacer. Tras mucho lamentar entre nosotras la injusticia de esta dinámica, nos dimos cuenta de que esta triste realidad de nuestra vida nocturna era producto directo de la inequidad económica basada en el género y cómo ésta le da una dimensión política al comercio nocturno en barrios gay, y en el espacio urbano en general. Al mismo tiempo entendimos que si queríamos crear una alternativa no podíamos esperar que resultara ser gran negocio. Siendo, al fin, amantes de las causas perdidas como sólo pueden serlo chicas de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM y sus amigas, comenzamos a considerar la organización de fiestas lésbicas.
Fiestas en sábado como proyecto politico
Tras mucho deliberar, nos hicimos llamar Meras efímeras, una frase que reflejaba nuestras pocas ganas de tener sentido lógico. Al principio éramos cinco: Anahí, Sandra, Chichis Glam, Artemisa y yo. Pudimos organizar nuestra primera fiesta cuando la abuela de Artemisa le dio permiso de tener una reunión en su azotea en noviembre del 2005. Habría que explicar que la señora se encontraría en una larga vacación fuera de la ciudad, y que la azotea tenía acceso directo desde el departamento de Artemisa en el edificio contiguo. Así pues, encontrar espacios económicamente accesibles para nuestros eventos sería siempre el reto más grande de nuestro proyecto. Nos propusimos como misión tener una fiesta lésbica (abierta a todo público) mensual, que fuera siempre en sábado, y que siempre tuviera algún tipo de show o espectáculo que pudiéramos considerar “cultural” en un sentido amplio de la palabra. El hecho de que proclamáramos que nuestro proyecto era político al considerar a la diversión nocturna y las artes escénicas como una auténtica causa lésbica enfureció a algunas lesbianas feministas, mientras que otras lo recibieron como una buena nueva. Chichis y Artemisa crearon dos shows originales de música y poesía: “Efímeros goces” (2006) e “Inés, yo con tu amor…” (2007) los cuales atrajeron la atención de círculos literarios y culturales. De tal forma que recibimos invitaciones a presentar el show o hablar sobre nuestro trabajo de organización de fiestas en conferencias políticas y académicas como el III Encuentro de Escritor@s sobre Disidencia Sexual e Identidades Sexo-Genéricas en la Universidad Veracruzana, y eventos artísticos tales como la XVIII Semana Cultural Lésbico-Gay. La lista de artistas que se presentaron en nuestras fiestas incluye al grupo de teatro Las Hijas de Safo, y coorganizamos con las Kumbia Queers una de sus primeras presentaciones en la Ciudad de México en el Pasagüero.
De la pista de baile al scenario
Después de un par de años, nuestro proyecto tomó un giro cuando conocimos a Old Ma Femme, una artista de Nueva York, quien ofreció darnos un taller de burlesque. A pesar de que no pretendíamos realmente convertirnos en vedettes, Old Ma Femme insistió en que teníamos que hacer una presentación pública para culminar el taller. El éxito de aquel show fue una grata sorpresa, y la energía que ahí se generó nos impulsó para crear un proyecto independiente de burlesque llamado Burlesquimeras: institutrices de belleza universal. En él nos encontrábamos la mayoría de las Meras efímeras, pero también artistas amateurs como Glitter y Gabina Estrella, así como la actriz y cabaretera profesional Minerva Valenzuela “ladelcabaret.” A la vez, era común que nuestra madrina, Old Ma Femme, hiciera coincidir sus visitas a México con nuestras presentaciones para encabezar el espectáculo.
De tal forma que nuestro enfoque cambió de organizar una fiesta con un show, a un espectáculo después del cual se abría pista para bailar. El reto de encontrar un lugar apto para una fiesta se complicó aún más al necesitar ahora un espacio con un escenario y un vestuario (por más improvisados que estos pudieran ser). El público de Burlesquimeras era más mixto que el de mayoría lésbica de las fiestas de Meras efímeras, pero seguía siendo una iniciativa sin fines de lucro.
Organizamos e improvisamos presentaciones a lo largo y ancho de la Ciudad de México en bares gays y no gays como La Vora, El Mancera y el Marrakech Salón; en centros culturales tales como El Faro de Oriente y Buzón de Arte; en boutiques como I Love Myself, y hasta en el lobby del Hostal Virreyes. Burlesquimeras también fuimos invitadas a presentarnos en el mitin tras la Primera Marcha-Caléndula por la Diversidad Sexual en Oaxaca y en los eventos artístico por la XVII Conferencia Mundial del SIDA con sede en la Ciudad de México en el 2008.
A diez años de distancia
Debo mencionar que mediados de los dosmiles las redes sociales no eran aún la herramienta de organización que ahora son. En aquellos tiempos nos valíamos de volantes que había que diseñar, imprimir, fotocopiar y repartir (tarea que nos llevaría, casualmente, a las “ladies nights” de la Zona Rosa de las que tanto tratábamos de huir), y a de grupo de correo electrónico en Yahoo (tarea que nos llevaba a pedirle su correo a las asistentes a la entrada de nuestros eventos). A pesar de que estas labores podían ser divertidas en sí, también nos dejaban exhaustas y el dinero que se recuperaba sólo cubría los gastos de la operación. Por este y otros motivos personales, comencé a alejarme del espectáculo y la organización de fiestas en el 2009. Lo mismo sucedió eventualmente con mis compañeras, de tal forma que Meras efímeras y Burlesquimeras dejaron de tener actividades completamente hacia el 2012.
En junio del 2016 conmemoramos (con unos meses de retraso) el décimo aniversario de Meras efímeras en Oaxaca, donde Chichis ha establecido la Casa Estudio Chichis Libres. Esa misma noche hubo enfrentamientos entre la policía y lxs maestrxs de la CNTE acampados en el centro de la ciudad, como cada año, en protesta por las imposiciones neoliberales al sistema de educación pública y su sindicato en México. A los pocos días, nuestro regreso a la Ciudad de México se tuvo que posponer por más violencia hacia lxs maestrxs en un bloqueo carretero en Nochixtlán en el que fuerzas policiacas militarizadas mataron a seis, mientras que el gobierno sostiene que la tropa no llevaba armas.
La violencia de estos eventos me hace cuestionar la relevancia de una proyecto basado en la fiesta y el espectáculo, por más que estos sean un proyecto político queer y feminista sin fines de lucro. Meras efímeras y Burlesquimeras comenzaron su trayectoria al mismo tiempo que México declaraba una guerra contra las drogas en el 2006, una guerra que ha escalado y provocado el desplazamiento, desaparición forzada y asesinato de cientos de miles de personas. Nuestra meta política hace poco más de diez años era crear un espacio para celebrar nuestra vida y nuestra creatividad como mujeres fuera de la heteronorma, pero mientras que la guerra sigue en ascenso en el 2017, no estoy muy segura de cómo festejar. Hoy me pregunto ¿cómo se tiene una fiesta lésbica en tiempos de feminicidio y transfeminicidio?
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Photo Credits:
"The crowd at Meras efímeras first anniversary party at El Vicio in Coyoacán, Mexico City (2006),” Photo by Islandia / "El público en la fiesta de primer aniversario de Meras efímeras en El Vicio en Coyoacán, Ciudad de México (2006)," Foto de Islandia
"Digital flyer for Meras efímeras 10 year anniversary (2016)," Flyer de Islandia / "Volante digital para la fiesta del décimo aniversario de Meras efímeras en 2016," Volante de Islandia
"The roof-top crowd at one of our first parties (2005)," Photo by Islandia / "Aspecto de una de nuestras primeras fiestas en azotea (2005)," Foto de Islandia
"Chichis and Artemisa performing "Efímeros goces" at a Meras efímeras party in the Chanti Ollin squat (2006)," Photo by Islandia / "Chichis y Artemisa en presentación de "Efímeros goces" en una fiesta de Meras efímeras en la casa ocupada Chanti Ollin (2006)," Foto de Islandia
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club Presents
A Helix Queer Performance Network Event
La MaMa’s Squirts:
Generations of Queer Performance
Curated and Hosted by Dan Fishback January 6 - 15, 2017 The Club at La MaMa Fridays & Saturdays at 10pm, Sundays at 6pm The Club at La MaMa, Tickets $18 / $13 Students and Seniors Available at 74A East 4th Street, NYC or www.lamama.org or 646-430-5374 JAN 6: Marga Gomez & Patti Harrison JAN 7: Stephen Winter & Banjela Davis JAN 8: Kate Bornstein & Theda Hammel JAN 13: Sarah Schulman & m.b. JAN 14: Pamela Sneed & Yaya McKoy JAN 15: Susana Cook & Mieke D La MaMa’s Squirts celebrates its 5th anniversary with a series of duets to mend the queer generation gap, or at least bedazzle it. For five years, The Helix Queer Performance Network has invited the queer performance worlds of NYC to La MaMa for raucous family reunions to celebrate our legacy of community theatrics, multiple generations of queer genius and the precocious audacity of the millennial mind. Dozens of queer artists from their 20s to their 70s have crossed the stage of this uniquely inter-generational festival. To celebrate our fifth season, each night will feature only a single inter-generational pairing, to really explore what happens when the queer generations collide. Helix is a collaboration between La MaMa, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics. Graphic Design by Lauren Denitzio ACCESSIBILITY: The Club at La MaMa is up two flights of stairs with no available elevator.
Opting Out: Yaya McKoy in La MaMa’s Squirts
[Artist Yaya McKoy is performing in La MaMa’s Squirts on Saturday, January 14, 2017 at 10pm along with Pamela Sneed. McKoy posted the following text on Facebook when sharing the event. We wanted to share their words here. Content warning: Abuse, Violence.]
On January 14th, 2017 I'm going to talk about my gender & sexuality in a way that is more honest and nuanced than I have been taught that I am supposed to.
I know that I am supposed to say that I always knew I was some kind of boy/girl hybrid but that is not true. I just never understood that gender was a requirement so I opted out.
I know that I am supposed to say that my molestation as a child has no bearing on my sexuality but that is also a lie. I was/am broken and live in desperation to feel anything like what the world insists that I must feel.
I know that I am supposed to be a good, non-violent martyr for the cause. But there are those who hurt us for the types of sex we have and for the types of sex we refuse to have. They hurt us for the ways we merely exist. I want to hurt them back. I want to hurt them before they even have a chance to hurt us.
I know that I am supposed to choose a side on gender presentation. I am supposed to be femme or masc and be uncomfortable when I occupy the wrong space. But I move elegantly through these binary roles and all that lies between and outside of them with confident joy.
I am supposed to say I was born this way as though gender wasn't repeatedly forced on me and stripped away from me all my life. i am supposed to pretend i didn't allow it to happen. I am supposed to act like I didn't learn to like what I was given and work it like it was my own idea.
I am supposed to say that a simple word, like "trans" or "genderqueer" or "gender-non-conforming" is sufficient to describe and replace an ancestral title, my birthright, that was torn from my people to better control them. I am supposed to pretend like the word "queer" is an umbrella term that I actually fit under while I am obviously standing in the rain.
This will not be what it is supposed to be. I will not be what I am supposed to be. I hope that it speaks to the parts of you that are not how folks said you should be. Or I just hope that it speaks to you.
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La MaMa’s Squirts: Generations of Queer Performance, January 6 - 15, 2017, 74A East 4th Street, NYC, Tickets available HERE.
La MaMa’s Squirts: Generations of Queer Performance
La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club Presents A Helix Queer Performance Network Event La MaMa’s Squirts: Generations of Queer Performance
Curated and Hosted by Dan Fishback January 6 - 15, 2017 The Club at La MaMa Fridays & Saturdays at 10pm, Sundays at 6pm The Club at La MaMa, Tickets $18 / $13 Students and Seniors Available at 74A East 4th Street, NYC or www.lamama.org or 646-430-5374 JAN 6: Marga Gomez & Patti Harrison JAN 7: Stephen Winter & Banjela Davis JAN 8: Kate Bornstein & Theda Hammel JAN 13: Sarah Schulman & m.b. JAN 14: Pamela Sneed & Yaya McKoy JAN 15: Susana Cook & Mieke D La MaMa’s Squirts celebrates its 5th anniversary with a series of duets to mend the queer generation gap, or at least bedazzle it. For five years, The Helix Queer Performance Network has invited the queer performance worlds of NYC to La MaMa for raucous family reunions to celebrate our legacy of community theatrics, multiple generations of queer genius and the precocious audacity of the millennial mind. Dozens of queer artists from their 20s to their 70s have crossed the stage of this uniquely inter-generational festival. To celebrate our fifth season, each night will feature only a single inter-generational pairing, to really explore what happens when the queer generations collide. Helix is a collaboration between La MaMa, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics. Graphic Design by Lauren Denitzio ACCESSIBILITY: The Club at La MaMa is up two flights of stairs with no available elevator.
SUBMERGE SPOTLIGHT: Ola Ronke
Leading up to Submerge: will you? at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange (Nov 6-13, 2016), we’re spotlighting each of the artists gathered by curator Naimonu James. The final day of the festival, Sunday, November 13th, features an installation by The Free Black Women’s Library from noon - 5pm (free to the public). The Library will then house a reading of “Permitted” by Kirya Traber at 6pm. Learn more about the Library here, and buy tickets for Kirya’s reading in Submerge here!
Naimonu James: What is The Free Black Women's Library and what form will it take at Submerge 2016: will you?
Ola Ronke: The Free Black Women's Library is a mobile library featuring a collection of 450 books written by Black women. It's also an interactive biblio-installation, co-created by the community's trades and donations, constantly changing via minute-to-minute swapping, becoming different and new with each moment. It's an exceptional gathering that centers and celebrates the divinity of Black womanhood. It's a conjure and a cypher, a mini retreat, a space to breathe, a space to read.
In this space the words and stories of Black women are held, shared, created and explored. All who honor and treasure the lives and experiences of Black women are welcome. It's sensual, nerdy, juicy, radical, loving, bitchy, maternal, sexy vulnerable, cis, trans, straight, queer, butch, femme, and gender non conforming. It's also everything in between, all of that. All that intersects and disconnects. All that grows from all of us. It's womanist heart based mission to intentionally build creativity, safety, pleasure, beauty and joy. It's soulful and sweet. It's honey, nut butter, deep brown, rich indigo, Black. It's a happening.
At Submerge, the library will be activated by sound and movement. Through an interdependent exercise the breath and body will be used to honor softness and vulnerability. Within Black femme hood there lives pure magic in our ability to adore, nurture, heal, care for and love both ourselves and others. In our loving we dive into hurt, joy, pain and pleasure. This movement is expressed in seeing our vast capability to feel as a strength and a gift. Through the use of the muscles, bones, flesh and blood, the heart opens and feels - it evolves and liberates itself.
This piece is call and response/ Please feel free to join in and embrace what comes up.
This iteration of the library will contain the 450 book collection, an altar dedicated to Black women and girls lost via state violence, a sound scape of music, random audio and speeches, and a short performance piece. All are welcome to join in on the performance.
SUBMERGE SPOTLIGHT: Taja Lindley
Leading up to Submerge: will you? at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange (Nov 6-13, 2016), we’re spotlighting each of the artists gathered by curator Naimonu James. The festival kicks off on November 6th at 6pm, with a full-length performance by Taja Lindley. Learn more about Taja at her website, and buy tickets for her appearance in Submerge here! HELIX: In many of your pieces, you play the character of The Bag Lady, a figure who makes the audience question what we hang on to, and what we discard. After developing this character over so many pieces, how has she evolved?
TAJA: When I began this work, The Bag Lady started as a tragically funny spectacle of a woman who does not know how to let go of shit. Erykah Badu’s version. You know the one: can’t catch a bus because she’s got too much stuff.
But as I began to think more deeply about the disposable nature of Black life in the United States, I realized: The Bag Lady is on to something. What we discard, reject and throw away has value and meaning. She is the holder and the keeper of all things discarded – memories, habits, relationships, histories, ancestors and those parts of ourselves that we’d prefer to let go of for the sake of being loved and accepted by others. She’s concerned with the mundane and the systemic. She is no longer a woman, she is a Goddess. Something like an Orisha – a manifestation of Supreme Divinity. She is a living Sankofa - a timely reminder that time is not linear and the past is always with us, whether we like it or not…. Whether we choose to recognize it or not.
As I continue to be a vessel for her voice and her message, I’m still learning her. It doesn’t feel accurate to say that she is “evolving”… more like revealing herself. She is still unfolding. I don’t like everything she has to say, nor do I always agree. What’s clear is that she has a gospel. And I am learning more about her with each performance.
H: You’ve described The Bag Lady as a divine presence. What role does your creative practice play in your own spiritual life (or vice versa)?
T: My creative practice and my spiritual life are inextricably connected. I do ritual before, during and after a performance. I take my work seriously. If I’m gonna call on ancestors, namely unarmed Black people who have died violent deaths at the hands of police, I have to be spiritually responsible. This work is not a gimmick. I don’t do this because it’s trendy to talk about #BlackLivesMatter. Sure – the current socio political landscape makes this feel urgent, but to be clear: I do this because on a personal and societal level WE NEED TO HEAL. And healing will not happen without spirit. And to not include spirit in this work only serves to continue the objectification of Black bodies and the inhumane spectacle of Black death.
Every time I’m on stage it is an opportunity for me to touch, move and inspire people. Inspiration literally means to be filled with spirit. So how I show up inside of my spirit matters. In order to fill you up, I must first be full myself. So I’ve got to journal, to pray, to release what no longer serves me (ha! what might The Bag Lady have to say about that?), and to manifest my deepest desires. If anything, my creative practices make my spiritual practice more urgent, more necessary. If I want to authentically create meaningful and powerful performances, I am required to observe and attend to myself consistently and deeply.
H: Much of your work deals directly with ongoing white supremacist violence against Black people. Has making this work impacted how you see or respond to violence in the world, past or present?
T: This work has reminded me that my creative practice is my church. This is how I heal and get free. This is how I process the ongoing violence inflicted on Black bodies. Dance. Write. Sing. Create something. Even if it will never be on a stage. Even if it doesn’t make it into my next project. Just create. Literally transform the energy of rage and grief that lives in my body as I learn about one more act of violence.
Being a vessel for The Bag Lady has also reminded me that memory is important for social movements. If we want to shift and transform our current conditions, we must never forget what created these conditions and who we have lost in the process. That’s the problem with America: the selective amnesia and deliberate erasure of this country’s history of genocide, colonization and slavery means we cannot create meaningful solutions to long-standing problems. We gotta know the truth of our circumstances in order to address them. And as long as we keep forgetting, that won’t happen. So I am committing myself to remembering.
H: What’s been the most challenging aspect of crafting this iteration of The Bag Lady?
T: Telling her full story. Like I mentioned before – she is still unfolding, still revealing herself to me. While I’m learning more about her, this process is unfolding too slowly for my tastes. But I’m patient with her. With each rehearsal and with each performance, she makes herself known. But I guess that’s what I should expect – she defies time, ain’t on time, colored people’s time, keeper of the people taken before their time… and she will reveal herself in time. Certainly, on her own time.
Photo courtesy of Denmark Arts Center (DAC)
SUBMERGE SPOTLIGHT: Mette LouLou von Kohl
Leading up to Submerge: will you? at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange (Nov 6-13, 2016), we’re spotlighting each of the artists gathered by curator Naimonu James. Learn more about Mette LouLou von Kohl at her website, and buy tickets for her November 11th appearance in Submerge here! HELIX: You’ve said before that when you create performances, you are creating Palestine on stage. How does your experience of displacement and diaspora affect your artistic practice?
LOULOU: I am of the diaspora because I am of a displaced people. My work is an exploration of how I can find a way back from where I have been displaced, physically, emotionally, mentally. How sifting my way through a diasporic experience shapes this journey, and how it complicates what I am returning back to. I understand my position in the Palestinian diaspora as being removed from the source – the land, and the knowledge of history, memory, and culture, which the land holds. Removed from this source, my artistic practice is about unearthing what exists in this distance and remembering what has disappeared in this removal, in order to understand what is left. And through remembering and unearthing, to discover a new source from which I am not removed, and envision the arrival back from where we have been displaced.
H: You're a solo artist, but you've made solo pieces in a lot of group contexts, like your performance collective A Beautiful Desperation, EmergeLab and La MaMa's Squirts. What have you learned from these group processes that impacts your approach to solo performance?
L: I've learned a hell of a lot. I've learned that you can't make good solo performance working solo. I've learned that receiving feedback and critique from a range of creative minds is crucial to developing my work. And that I never want to do my solo work alone. Creating solo work in groups settings has made me a more courageous artist. Because it allows me the possibility to take a creative risk and fail, or not know what the hell I'm doing and follow some random impulse, knowing that someone is watching in order to reflect this back to me and help me in my process. So now when I am in a rehearsal studio alone, I am more open to trying things out, before critiquing myself or doubting my instincts, because I have practiced this mode of working in these group processes.
H: How does it feel to be presenting this new piece in the context of a festival that centers Black femme identity and experience? How does that impact your approach to the work?
L: I am honored to be presenting my piece in this context. Spaces, which center Black femme voices are crucial, and more folks with resources need to be doing the work to offer spaces where Black femme voices can be uplifted. I view this festival and the process of sharing my work in dialogue with the other artists as a method of strategizing and organizing across struggles. Through sharing our experiences and visions, what similarities and difference are revealed, and how can these points of intersection and divergence serve our work in the fight for mutual liberation? As I work on this new piece, I am therefore reminded of the much wider contexts in which my story and exploration is taking place, beyond the singular lens of the Palestinian struggle. I am asking myself how can my work draw connections with other struggles in service of holding accountable, in order to ultimately challenge and destroy the systems of our oppressors.
Photo by Laura Bluher
Submerge Spotlight: Kirya Traber
Leading up to Submerge: will you? at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange (Nov 6-13, 2016), we’re spotlighting each of the artists gathered by curator Naimonu James. Learn more about Kirya Traber at her website, and buy tickets for our presentation of her new play Permitted here!
HELIX: Your new play, Permitted, is inspired by the life of Gladys Bentley. When did you first come across her, and how did she impact you?
KIRYA TRABER: I learned about Bentley in 2009, when Michelle Tea invited me to be part of a special commission between the Radar Reading Series and the San Francisco GLBT Historical Society Archives. By a stroke of luck, and the right key words, I found a single manila folder containing Eric Garber's research on Gladys Bentley. There was barely anything online about her then, so in my hands I held some of the only surviving records of her existence. Bentley was a GNC, same gender loving, Harlem Renaissance legend who later (historical spoiler alert) conformed to heteronormativity and Christianity. At the time, I was struggling with internalized shame about my own GNC identity and learning about this ancestor's struggle felt like finding a mirror. I was in awe that Bentley had been so publicly outspoken about her gender identity and sexual orientation in the era she lived through. I was also fascinated by the reality that her public status was likely what forced her to conform later in life. Bentley is a complex character. She's not the "model queer ancestor" whose ideals triumphed over the realities of the day. She struggled, and it's unclear whether she won or lost, and that was the kind of genuine queer history I needed to see. I needed it then, and I need it now. The discovery of Bentley in the archive kicked off the last seven years of my personal and artistic exploration. Finding her truly changed my life, and it's hard to imagine what kind of artist or human I would be if hadn't found that little manila folder.
H: You’re a trained actor and award-winning performance poet, but you’re not performing in this play. Do you write differently when you know your body won’t be on stage? KT: I don't set out writing for other performers, but my writing lets me know if the text requires my body, or someone else's. In my first few attempts to write about Bentley, I found I couldn't stop writing my own story. What was intended to be a solo performance about Bentley's life eventually transformed into my first solo show, OVERHEARD, which was about my body and identity as filtered through the gaze of strangers (though Bentley does make a small cameo). I started writing Permitted last fall, a year and a half after OVERHEARD premiered, and this time I finally got out of the way and let Bentley's story come through. The play has three title roles, none of which need to be performed by me, and I find that thrilling. As a writer, I'm really excited to see other performers take on my text. Actors teach me so much about my characters and the world they live in, and I've often made revisions based on the way an actor interprets a role. I think being a playwright is my favorite kind of collaboration. H: This reading of Permitted in Submerge (Nov. 13th, 8pm) will occur within an installation by The Free Black Women’s Library. How do you feel about presenting work in this context? How do you think this frame will dialogue with the play itself? KT: I discovered Bentley in an archive, but just barely. At the time I was researching, most of the GLBT Archive's records were about white gay men. Beyond that small folder on Bentley and a few articles on Sylvester, Black queer history was virtually non-existent in that collection, as it arguably is across the entire field of archival research. I can't think of anything more fitting than reading this play inside The Free Black Women's Library instillation. This context highlights the necessity of documenting the history of Black queer folks, and I'm grateful to the curator, Naimonu James, for this incredible invitation.
Photo by Tanwi Nandini Islam
LA FIN: Mourning the Edgy Women Festival
Julia Dyck, with T.L. Cowan
June 8, 2016
After over two decades of exploring feminisms through thought-provoking and experimental artistic events, Montreal’s Edgy Women Festival has come to an end, of sorts. Founded by Miriam Ginestier in 1994 and produced by Studio 303 as a multidisciplinary and multi-lingual platform for feminist and queer creative experiments, “Edgy” (as its beloveds call it) has featured hundreds of artists and dozens of presentation formats including cabaret, screenings, exhibits, workshops, and zine publications.
Edgy’s stages have been a destination and highlight for local and international artists working with feminist and queer aesthetics and themes. Partially due to cuts to arts events and no sustaining funding, and partially due to Miriam’s attention shifting elsewhere, 2016 will be Edgy’s last year of programming and these final events will give artists and audiences a chance to mourn the end of Edgy together. The 2016 program is focused on saying goodbye and paying respects — a process which involved both mourning and preserving memories through the theme of LA FIN/THE END. Montreal-based events included a funeral-themed video retrospective, “Edgy Redux,” hosted by Miriam Ginestier for Montreal’s Nuit Blanche (February 27); La Fin/The End Cabaret (March 5), where the audience was hosted through the five stages of grief by Emcees and Edgy muses, Dayna McLeod and Nathalie Claude; an Oral History project through which performers recalled stories and sentiments (conducted by Julia Dyck); and a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon for the archival or “digital interment” of Edgy. The final Edgy event takes place this week in New York City, when the Performance Mix Festival hosts a special NYC-meets-Montreal cabaret-style show on Wednesday, June 8th.
Although Edgy will take a final bow this week at the Abrons Arts Center in NYC, we can be assured that at least some of its life-force will live on in the Edgy Oral History Interviews and in the online media archive now housed on the Edgy Blog (https://edgywomenblog.com/). These interviews and media archive let us see that for almost a quarter of a century Edgy stages were a place for experimentation, knowledge production, and personal and professional growth as artists launched careers and friendships in the Edgy line-up. Theatre artist Nathalie Claude and performance and video artist, Lamathilde spoke of the great impact their first performances had on their career, and also the strong community that has stemmed from these events.
The festival has been known for its unpredictability, where audiences knew they might be dealing with some challenging content. Pieces touched on themes including death, abortion, assault, murder, and sex work. Venues ranged from classic theatre and cabaret stages, to public ice rinks, sidewalks, and a boxing club. It is this latter venue where the festival celebrated its 20th year under the theme of ART / SPORT / GENRE, which featured feminist hockey, boxing, and bodybuilding.
The Edgy Women Festival has also been subject to the changing social and political climate in Canada and Quebec, and this has been reflected in the performances, as well as in the size and scope of the festival, which varied due to inconsistencies in government support. Edgy persevered through the bleak years of the Stephen Harper Conservative government; after losing heritage funding in 2013, the festival was shortened from three weeks to three events, and it was renamed Edgy Redux with artistic direction by Andrea Rideout. The kind of performers and type of work being exhibited in the festival also needed to adjust to reflect nuanced feminist politics, and work to include the voices of feminists that may not feel initially hailed or welcomed by the anticipated exclusivity of the “Edgy Women” title. As multi-media artist Dayna McLeod notes in her Oral History Interview:
Feminist performance art at its root is using the body. I think the biggest change and challenge to performers and festivals is having the audience, performers, curators, etc. realize that a feminist performer’s body isn’t always necessarily a cis-gendered female body, and that is very exciting to see. I would say that’s been one of the biggest changes, as well as opening the arms of intersectionality.
Due to the cultural shifts initiated and sustained by Edgy and other feminist and queer performance festivals in Canada and elsewhere, the kind of work once showcased at the Edgy Women is now be accepted and even celebrated in a variety of performance festivals, as well as in nightclub settings. That said, as Edgy closes its curtain once and for all, we are reminded of the imperative community-building, knowledge-creation, and scene-transforming political, social, aesthetic and erotic functions served by this festival and other spaces that have cultivated feminist and queer performance over long periods of time. Under the moniker mimproductions, Miriam also initiated, produced, curated and often created work for two other long-running queer/dyke/lesbian events: Meow Mix, a Cabaret “for bent girls and their buddies” (1997-2012) and Le Boudoir (1994-2007), an annual dyke/lesbian/queer theatrical extravaganza, which have also both ended in recent years. Even though we mourn these events and all they have meant to us, Miriam reminds us:
Feminism isn’t dead. There are still really strong arguments for exclusive spaces and highlighting women in art. I think feminism is a super fun lens to look at art through.… Edgy was really the way I explored the contradictions and complexities and strengths and weaknesses of the feminist movement as it evolved over the years.
While Edgy may be dead, the feminist ideas, conversations, and communities generated over the 23 years of the Edgy Women Festival live on. What and who will emerge to fill these roles in Montreal is yet to be revealed. Oral History Interview participants unanimously agreed that there is still a real need for experimental feminist performance, and they will continue to make this kind of work.
Miriam and Studio 303 will move on to focus on new projects and explore other ways to support performers through their programming. Edgy is dead. Long live Edgy!
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Edgy NYC+MTL, Curator, Miriam Ginestier, Performance Mix Festival, Wednesday June 8th, 7pm, Abrons Arts Center, 466 Grand Street, New York, NY.
Above photos: Emcees Nathalie Claude and Dayna McLeod grieving through anger at the Cabaret, Flyer for the 2007 edition of the festival.
Noches Transitadas: Chronicle of a Feisty Festive Sexual Dissidence in Two Voices
By Yecid Calderón and Julia Antivilo
Translations by Alexis O’Hara
Guest Editor: Itzayana Gutiérrez
Helix note: We invited Julia Antivilo and Yecid Calderón to give us an introduction to and critical reflection on their performance and curatorial practice for Noches Transitadas, a vital queer performance series in Mexico City. Working with Helix guest editor, Itzayana Gutiérrez, Julia and Yecid created a text—part manifesto, part artist statement—deeply resonant with the agit-prop aesthetics of the series.
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Noches Transitadas was a series of twelve critical and public cabaret events in Mexico City, the result of a loving complicity between Yecid Calderón (aka Pinina Flanders) and Julia Antivilo in selfless collaboration with many cabaret and performance artists. The gatherings occurred over 6 months in 2015. All but one took place, thanks to Lupita Rueda and Ricardo Fernandez, at the Diamond Club, located in the mariachi neighborhood that contains Garibaldi Square. The other event occurred north of the city, in Colonia Nueva Santa María, at the Galería Acto Espacio.
Each encounter posited a space for reflection about sexual dissidence, the criticism of heteronormativity and pink capitalism. It was also an opportunity to pay homage to different figures of the “xilango” underground with the faithful and hearty audience that filled the Diamond Club each of those Wednesdays in 2015.
Noches transitadas became a living, collective artwork, infused with an energy that differed from traditional artmaking methods. This call to complicity and synergy impacted the mood of organizers, participants and all those who attended to redraw conventional notions of the show, the curator, the festival performance.
These evenings subverted notions of creation, authorship and audience. The epicenter of the performative happening -the stage- became a democratic area of convergence and creation, bent and wild, rebellious, critical and sly. A play in 12 acts, presented in a club amidst the brothels of Garibaldi, this was an artwork without price or market demands; there were no production requirements, as such the work was boundless, grotesque, untidy; unglamorous but with all the possible glitter, wigs and corsets necessary to the situation.
The piece without authors was full of empowered names that appeared “al gratín” (ie no cover, no fee, no pay or trade). Certain Wednesday nights kicked off with guests who showed us the way they had generated a transition in their lives in a conversation that invited audience participation. Then, performers, strippers, people in drag, took the stage by storm with their proposals for political and innovative performance.
The evening ended with a spectacular closing number in honor of the trailblazers whose paths, diverging from the official history of the centrist, capitalist cultural industry, not always seem to belong to the annals of crazy “xilanga” and suburban nights. At the end of each session, we staged a collective work as a tableaux vivant of playful passions.
Some called this ephemeral work “activism in the form of a cabaret,” and that was what we lived thanks to a legless and headless art monster, or rather a monster with many legs and many heads created by artists like Tabris Berges, Federico Tello and Patricia Kattkins, Gran Dao, Patricio Ruiz, Mika Aslan, Mike Villa, Eduardo Gal, Lia La Novia Sirena and Gris Jz, Alba Isleña and Maria Berzosa, Susana Bercovich, Vero Peregrim, BatBren Wessen, Charlee Chamuko y Un Cuervo, Madorilyn Crawford, Las Hijas de Violencia, Flirty Everdeen, Pepe Romero and Miguel Jara.
Some of these artists took the stage for the first time, using the performance as a way to break down barriers, roles and the territory of elites, as was the case of the F & F (Fist Fucking group of Felipe Zúñiga and Frank López). Among the established artists honored were Victoria Letal, Fantasía, Franka Polari, Kaleido, Las Transchangas, Minerva Valenzuela La del Cabaret, Tigrida Revuelta, Coral Bonelli, La Bruja y sus Conjuros, Alberta Canada and Abora Nuit.
As a playful place of sexual dissidence, Noches transitadas provided a space to shake things up, not just bodies, but also desires among different groups: from a topless dykes command, to catlike and sensual queers, from psychedelic canaries, transvestite belly dancers to a bearded Marilyn, sexier than ever. Wednesday night after Wednesday night, this freaky circus deconstructed and undermined the rainbow flag of the so-called “gay culture” with its pink market. The colored stripes ot the rainbow, that function as borders of identities, each Wednesday were flooded with anti-systemic fluids to restore its value as a vortex (hurricanes of clouds converging).
Collective and massive, the performance was an action in which many meandered at the intersection of our oppression and the liberating act of questioning and challenging it, arriving to a critical, poetic and joyful review. At Noches transitadas, performance became a technique to challenge oneself and to generate reconfigurations of the subject and body of collective life. That is, that which is exhibited and discussed in the context of the ordinary, is evidenced to be diverse, odd (queer), ex-centric. This manner of imagining oneself, in opposition to the performativity of masculinity, femininity and gender (in the sense Butler intended) disturbs the aesthetic perception regulated by established, instituted and stereotyped forms of sexuality and man-woman binarism.
That was and remains our dissident stance on collective performance as a tool for opening pathways to new experiences, allowing us to imagine and realize new ways of being, in flux not yet set or configured. Celebrating the twisted aesthetic of a popular, multitudinous style (in the sentiment intended by Negri and Hard), as disjointed as it is colorful, we explore the possibilities of this power to share, scheme and conspire.
Noches Transitadas: Crónica de una disidencia sexual festiva combativa a dos voces
Escrito por Yecid Calderón y Julia Antivilo
Traducido al Ingles por Alexis O’Hara
Editor Invitado: Itzayana Gutiérrez
Helix nota: Invitamos a Julia Antivilo y Yecid Calderón a que nos dieran una introducción a y una reflexión crítica sobre su actuación y práctica curatorial para Noches Transitadas, una vital serie de performance queer en la Ciudad de México. Al trabajar con la editora invitada de Helix, Itzayana Gutierrez, Julia y Yecid crean un texto -mitad manifiesto, mitad declaración de artista- profundamente resonante con la estética agit-prop de la serie.
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Noches Transitadas fue una serie de doce encuentros cabareteros críticos y festivos en la Ciudad de México que fue producto de la complicidad amorosa de Yecid Calderón, aka Pinina Flandes, y Julia Antivilo, en cooperación desinteresada con muchxs artistas del cabaret y el performance. Los encuentros se dieron durante 6 meses del 2015 en el Diamond Club, en el barrio mariachi que contiene la plaza de Garibaldi, gracias a la conspiración con Lupita Rueda y Ricardo Fernández; y sólo uno de ellos ocurrió en la Galería Acto Espacio, en la colonia Nueva Santa María del norte de la ciudad.
Cada encuentro se convirtió en un espacio para la reflexión sobre la disidencia sexual, la crítica a la heteronormatividad y al capitalismo rosa. Ahí nos reunimos para dar homenaje a distintas figuras del underground “xilango” con quienes ex–pusimos el cuerpo junto con el fiel y copioso público que llenó el Diamond aquellos miércoles del año 2015.
Reuniendo estas fuerzas, Noches Transitadas se convirtió en una pieza viva y colectiva, construida con una energía diferente a la empleada en la forma tradicional de hacer arte. Fue un llamado a la complicidad y a la sinergia que impactó nuestro ánimo y el de todo aquel que asistiera al rebujar las formas convencionales de un show, de una curaduría, de un festival de performance.
En aquellas noches se torcía el imaginario sobre la creación, sobre el autor y sobre el público. El epicentro del acontecimiento perfomático, o sea el stage, se convirtió en una zona democrática, de convergencia, creación torcida y reventada, contestataria, crítica y ladina. La pieza de 12 actos presentada en un antro en medio de los burdeles de Garibaldi fue un arte sin precio ni demandas de mercado, sin exigencias de producción, desbordada, grotesca, desaliña; sin glamour pero con toda la brillantina posible, las pelucas y los corsets correspondientes al caso.
Tampoco tuvo autor pero estuvo repleta de nombres propios y empoderadxs, sin dominio, “al gratín” (o sea sin cover, sin plata, sin paga ni comercio). Algunos miércoles se disparaba la noche con invitadxs que nos enseñaban la manera en la que habían generado un tránsito en sus vidas en un conversatorio que abría el cabaret a la participación del público presente. Luego, a modo de varieté, performanceras, cabareteras, personas en drag, tomaban por asalto el escenario con una propuesta de performance político y novedoso. Se cerraba con la homenajeada en un final espectacular para celebrar sus trayectorias de dragas que, en la historia oficial de la industria cultural, centrada, pop y capitalista, no aparecen por pertenecer a los anales de la noche “xilanga” loca y de arrabal. Al final de cada sesión, construíamos una pieza colectiva como tableaux vivant de pasiones juguetonas.
Algunos llamaron a esta obra efímera “activismo en forma de cabaret”, y algo así fue lo que vivimos gracias al monstruo arte sin patas ni cabeza, o con muchas patas y muchas cabezas que crearon artistas como Tabris Berges, Federico Tello y Patricia Kattkins, Gran Dao, Patricio Ruiz, Mika Aslan, Mike Villa, Eduardo Gal, Lia La Novia Sirena y Gris Jz, Alba Isleña y María Berzosa, Susana Bercovich, Vero Peregrim, BatBren Wessen, Charlee Chamuko y Un Cuervo, Madorilyn Crawford, Las Hijas de Violencia, Flirty Everdeen, Pepe Romero y Miguel Jara. Algunas de estas personas se apoderaron del stage por primera vez, usando el performance como método para romper barreras y roles, predios y propiedades de élites, ese fue el caso de las F&F (Fist Fucking group- de Felipe Zúñiga y Frank López). Entre las artistas homenajeadas estuvieron Victoria Letal, Fantasía, Franka Polari, Kaleido, Las Transchangas, Minerva Valenzuela La del Cabaret, Tigrida Revuelta, Coral Bonelli, La Bruja y Sus Conjuros, Alberta Canadá y Abora Nuit.
Como lugar juguetón de la disidencia sexual, Noches Transitadas brindó un espacio donde poder refregarse y friccionar, no sólo los cuerpos, sino, también, los deseos entre diferentes grupos que van desde un comando de lenchas en tetas, a maricas gatunos y sensuales, canarios sicodélicos, odaliscas travestis y una Marilyn barbuda más sexy que nunca. Todo este circo freaky vogueó noche tras noche de miércoles para deconstruir, minar y diseminar la bandera del arco iris de la así llamada “cultura gay” con su mercado rosa. Sus franjas de colores fijos que funcionan como fronteras de identidades, cada miércoles fueron inundadas por ellas y nosotras de fluidos antisistémicos para recomponer su valor como vórtice (trombas de nubes que se mezclan).
La performance colectiva y multitudinaria, fue una acción en la que muchxs deambulábamos en la intersección de nuestra opresión y en el acto liberador de cuestionarla, impugnarla, realizando sobre su estructura una revisión crítica, poética y gozosa. En Noches Transitadas el performance se convirtió en una técnica para interpelarnos sobre nosotrxs mismxs y así generar un factor creativo de nuevas interpretaciones y reconfiguraciones del sujeto y del cuerpo en la producción de la vida colectiva. Es decir, aquello que, en tanto que se muestra, se exhibe y se expone en el ámbito de lo común, se evidencia diverso, raro (queer), ex-céntrico. Ese modo de imaginarse en rebeldía y a contrapelo con las performatividades de la masculinidad, la feminidad o el género (en el sentido de Butler), y que disturba la percepción estética regulada por formas establecidas, instituidas y estereotipadas, relativas a la sexualidad y al binarismo hombre-mujer.
Esa fue y sigue siendo nuestra postura disidente sobre el performance colectivo como pieza con agencia de transformación y que abre senderos de tránsito hacia nuevas experiencias y realizarnos más y de otra manera. Sin pensarnos ya hechos y configurados, celebrando las estéticas torcidas de un estilo popular, multitudinario (en el sentido de Negri y Hard) y abigarrado en tanto que colorido, exploramos las posibilidades de esta fuerza urdiendo hilos de coparticipación y conspiración.
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Fotos por Andrés Olvera. 1) Pinina Flandes (Yecid Calderón) y Julia Antivilo, 2) La mariachi se llama Vero Peregrim.
The Many Locals of Queer Performance
By T.L. Cowan
June 8, 2016
Queer performance is local, intensely specific to the social, political and cultural context in which it is made. It is also translocal in that queerness and performance are so often the critical means and methods by which we negotiate survival, resistance, transformation and communication in and across our many worlds.
Since we started publishing critical writing about queer performance in 2014, the Helix Critical Project has focused predominantly on our local New York City context. This year we wanted to shift our focus to performance scenes beyond NYC. With the support of the Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics in the Americas and Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), we worked with writers from Mexico City and Montreal to bring word from these great performance cities.
Our first piece is a performance chronicle from Yecid Calderón and Julia Antivilo, two artists/activists whose collaborative cabaret series, Noches Transitadas, has been a galvanizing force in the Mexico City political performance art scene. Here we have the two artists’ textual provocation, which echoes the aesthetic and political momentum of their performance and of the series.
In the second piece, writer and historian Julia Dyck reflects on the final days of Montreal’s Edgy Women Festival (1994-2016). In particular, Julia draws our attention to the Edgy Oral History Project and the legacy that Edgy will leave after 23 years of staging experimental feminist performance.
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Photo 1: Emcees Nathalie Claude and Dayna McLeod, Edgy Women Festival 2016, by Valerie Sangin. Photo 2: Coral Bonelli, Noches Transitadas, 2015, Fotógrafo: Andrés Olvera.