I really hate to end my coverage of OUTsider Festival on a negative note. I spent most of the day working another job, but I was excited to end the festival by seeing Pythia Dust at the Vortex. I figured it was too cold to really enjoy the closing party at Cheer Up Charlie’s anyway. […]
OUTsider: Connections, Conversations, and Family
One of my favorite aspects of art and performance is putting related pieces into conversation with one another, enriching the conversation surrounding a given topic. I’m so very happy with the way OUTsider Festival’s programming is facilitating those sorts of conversations, and I only wish I had the opportunity to participate more fully this year. […]
OUTsider Fest: Queerness Past, Present, and Future
The creators of OUTsider Festival in Austin really did their homework as far as covering a large scope and breadth of queer art and performance in the programming. Which on the one hand, is refreshing and inspiring. But on the other hand, means that there is just so, so much to discuss. Festivals, conferences, art, […]
OUTsider Fest: Khmer Classical Dance
I never feel quite so Western as in those moments when I’m confronted with Asian modes of performance. So it’s only fitting that the second night of OUTsider Festival in Austin featured a performance by Prumsodun Ok, a practitioner of Cambodia’s Khmer classical dance. I think it’s important to be aware of and claim those moments […]
OUTsider Festival: Narcissister and Gay Wax Museum
I wasn’t sure what to expect when headed to see Narcissister for the opening night of OUTsider Festival in Austin. Narcissister’s name is what it sounds like; the complication of our cultural understanding of the narcissist juxtaposed with the idea of sisterhood, and how being a “sister” relates to the identities of women of color […]
Review: Thr3e Zisters at the Salvage Vanguard
Zombie feminist theatre. That’s what Thr3e Zisters, the Salvage Vanguard’s new interpretation of Anton Chekhov’s The Three Sisters, claimed to be. I was intrigued, excited. This, I thought, is a show I must see. As those familiar with the theatre world know, Chekhov adaptations are a dime a dozen. I’ve never been hugely enamored of […]
Christmas Thoughts and Fearless Women
Sometimes I think I could let myself off the hook more.
Maybe doing what I love can be enough.
Maybe I should stop worrying so much about whether what I’m doing is the most important thing I could possibly do, and worry more about if I feel alive.
I want to feel that joy and exuberance Julia Child felt when she graduated from cooking school, and again when her cookbook was published.
And if I was full of that joy, maybe I’d have the energy for something else, too.
Book Review: Not My Father’s Son
Not My Father’s Son, a new memoir by bisexual actor Alan Cumming, is at once poignant, honest, heart-wrenching, hopeful, humerous, devastating, and affirming. That may seem like too many contradictory emotions all at once, but in the book, Cumming details a particularly difficult and emotional span of time in his life. The book centers around […]
Behind BedPost Confessions
What happens when several women writing about sex-positive issues on-line start talking to each another? In this particular case, it resulted in the long-running, sex-positive, monthly live performance event BedPost Confessions here in Austin. Co-producers Mia Martina, Sadie Smythe, and Julie Gillis all met virtually through their podcasts and blogs. Sadie knew co-producerRosie Q from […]
Stanley Roy: Fantasy’s Show & Tell
For almost two years, local musician and performer Stanley Roy has been hosting a monthly evening of performance called Show & Tell at local queer bar Cheer Up Charlies here in Austin. Roy hosts the evening’s events as Fantasy, a persona he created many years ago when a friend threw a birthday party and told […]