But
it was during the intimate performance, engineered by one of our own, Ken
Pienkos (who also happens to be a librarian at Antioch ), that QueerWise took flight. The
premise is simple: By invoking our personal sheroes/heroes, we are defining
ourselves, and our collective, by embracing identity politics in a way that is
informative, inspirational, and entertaining.
When
QueerWise was birthed, nearly seven years ago, we said all the right things and
diligently tried to engender a small community of writers of many-hued stripes.
That task was fraught; for all its good intentions (and we did achieve gender
equality and maintained it), QueerWise was too often dominated by sensibility
of gay white men of varying degrees of privilege.
It
wasn’t until our 2016 World AIDS Day offering at Skylight Theatre, We Laid Our Bodies Down, that QueerWise
began to strengthen its collective voice and layered consciousness. A year
later, Skylight produced Shades of
Disclosure, another World AIDS Day event that became a full production,
opening Skylight’s 2017 season.
What
was significant, beyond the thrill of QueerWise becoming part of L.A. ’s theater scene, was
our determined stance to enlighten at a time of encroaching darkness. The weeel
before we opened, sixteen performers (some with very little stage experience)
and a team of designers made drastic changes in the script, the video
projections, the music, the choreography: all in order to depict the urgency of
the international Women’s marches, focusing on L.A. and D. C.
What
also shifted was the thrust of the play’s intent which began as a way to (yes,
once again) define AIDS in the present tense; in other words, the AIDS stories
may have carried inevitable nostalgia but there were an equal number of in-the-moment
confessions and revelations. Those soaring monologues imbued Shades of Disclosure with both comedy
and tragedy, never disappointing those who looked toward QueerWise for
authenticity.
Within
hours before we opened, the themes swirling in Shades were realigned to focus more specifically on issues
involving women, the trans community, and our black/ brown brothers and
sisters. AIDS still maintained its star status but the supporting players gave
QueerWise an urgently needed new image.
But
the Antioch
evening took this newfound consciousness to an exalted level.
I
sat in the back of the cozy space—filled with a guileless conglomeration of
individuals—overwhelmed with pride for the accomplishments our troupe of Spoken
Word artists. Without spelling it out (either on the page or on the stage) Sheroes & Heroes, looked at the
individuals who inspired us and what emerged was a tapestry, always through a
queer l
ens,
emphasizing intersectionality--that which is female, including trans, and
racially mixed. The white gay guys (less than half of the cast’s composition)
were of service to something larger than themselves.
QueerWise
performed heroically that night and we will continue to engage our artistry by
trusting our instincts, loving each other, and listening to the world’s whispers
and cries.