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performance art

OUTsider Fest 2019 Review: A Collection of Queeriosities

A photo of Nia & Ness at OUTsider Fest.

This year, OUTsider Fest celebrated its fifth year with enthusiasm, collaborative spirit, and queer BIPOC avant-garde delights. Artistic director Curran Nault and president PJ Raval opened their home to morning Conferences on the Couch, casual round-table panel discussions of the previous night’s performances and exhibitions, and created a space for the different artists to discuss their views and work through the lenses of different academically salient topics. In the afternoon and on into the evening, performative works ranging from theatre…

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OUTsider Fest to ‘Unlock the Cabinet of QUEERIOSITIES’ in Austin

A photo of Felix and the Future at OUTsider Fest.

Given the current state of our country, it is more important than ever that we embrace our queerness with ferocity. We must continue to challenge conformity and be as visible as possible. On February 20–24, OUTsider Fest, Austin’s annual queer transmedia festival, returns with this motive in mind. This year’s festival is appropriately themed “Unlock the Cabinet of QUEERIOSITIES,” and promises to be “a queer take on the cabinet of curiosities and its peculiar oddities.” Through this lens, OUTsider calls on…

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Acts of Rebellion: Experimental Action Centers Queer Performance Artists

A photo of Antonius Bui at Experimental Action.

If you truly know Houston, you know there’s no denying our ranking as a national contender in the competitive visual arts dominion. The city is continuously abuzz with new and up-and-coming gallery openings, exhibitions, and alternative art collectives. What often gets left out of the picture, however, is the avant-garde, activist-inspired, trailblazing, and authentic performance art scene. This repertoire is the city’s best-kept secret—one that deserves to be exposed and given some long-overdue recognition. At the heart of this scene is…

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Queer Dance Theory: On Smashing the Heteropatriarchy, Creating Body- and Sex-Positive Dances, and What it Means to be a Queer Artist

A photo of queer dance theory.

I recently attended a Choreographers' Forum at Houston's 2018 Dance Salad Festival. The panel consisted of two gay male choreographers and one straight female choreographer. During the question and answer portion of the evening, I stood up and asked the artists if they had choreographed any work that explored queer experience and romantic relationships. Given how common love duets are in dance, I expected at least one or both of the gay choreographers to name queer-themed works they had created.…

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Cell Lust: Emilý Æyer and Traci Lavois Thiebaud Explore Transience of Nonbinary Identity

A photo of Cell Lust.

“You can call me ‘she’ today. Ask me again tomorrow.” This is the concluding line of Cell Lust | a body |, a one-hour performance art piece exhibited at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH). Cell Lust, in its transitory existence, shares enlightenment on the topics of our cosmic bodies (and their requests for relational discourse between sex, gender, and nonbinary identities) through an intense, invasive experience. Its two creators, Houston-based artists Emilý Æyer and Traci Lavois Thiebaud, compacted narrated…

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