What's Happened

Queer
activism
highlights ~

  • Late ‘70’s ~ Hosted a weekly Saturday night gay men’s potluck dinner as a bar alternative.
  • Early 80’s ~ Sued the Twin Cities Reader. They refused personal ads from gay men and lesbians. I won, the settlement benefited the Minnesota AIDS Project, and me.

photo Bill Phelps
  • 1986 ~ Began Patrick’s Cabaret, arguably the most queer friendly performing space in town.
  • 1988 ~ Went to my first Radical Faerie Gathering. I have been involved with the Northwoods Radical Faeries ever since.
  • Early ‘90’s ~ Agitated to pressure MAP to put a sign with their name on it in front of their building on Park Avenue. There is a sign there now.

    Reverse Head Shot (Extreme piercing or surgical disc repair?)
    photo Kel Keller
  • Early ‘90’s ~ Confronted the downtown YMCA about their homophobic attitudes and behaviors.
  • 1990 ~ Pressured KTCA to include people with HIV on their call in panel after the program Art & AIDS.
  • 1991 ~ Filed a discrimination suit against my employer, the Science Museum of Minnesota, for discrimination based on marital status and sexual preference.
  • 1992 ~ Received a grant from the Minnesota AIDS Funding Consortium to create performance art as an openly gay HIV+ man as a strategy for shaping public policy.
  • Mid ‘90’s ~ Sat on Ryan White funding panels.
  • Late 1990s ~ Gave the keynote speech to a national convention of dance educators in Minneapolis. The topic was how homophobia keeps getting in the way of success in the field.

Queer cultural work, some highlights ~

  • 1980 ~ Part of the first ever showcase of gay and lesbian artists in Minnesota.
  • 1981 ~ Presented my first solo dance performance dealing with gay identity.
  • 1992 ~ The first artist to receive a Bush Artist Fellowship for openly gay work.
  • 2002 ~ Created a video for the National Coming Out Day Lunch, at the committee’s request, to lampoon coming out.

 


Photo Warwick Green

Queer performance ~

I have created the following performances reflecting my life as an out gay man and/or living with HIV:
  • Thrive!
  • The Naked Truth
  • I Left the Space Bare
  • Losing my Foundations
  • Faith, Hope and Ambivalence
  • Queer Thinking, solo performance art monologue
  • Illuminations, solo improvisation/performance art
  • Too Soon Lost, monologue with film
  • A Faerie Home Companion, solo performance art
  • Death of Romance, solo performance art

Working with other queer artists I have created ~

  • posiT.V. with Eric Gupton
  • Nebel & Neblina with Ric Oquita
  • Forever Hold Your Piece with Djola Branner
  • Survival Symptoms, performance art with David Lindahl
  • Performance of Ritual with Northwoods Radical Faeries
  • Warsaw II with Poonie Dodson
  • Nobody Gets Pregnant with Erika Thorne


What's Happened ~ Events


Click a month to see details...

     
2012 ~    
  March Star Tribune article "Skinny dip or performance art?
     
2011 ~    
  October Sage Awards "State of the Field"
     
  September Thrive!
     
2005 ~    
  July Making Contact
     
  April Conversations with Patrick Scully
     
  Jan ~ April The Line
     
2004 ~    
  December Back From Berlin
     
  September Monkey Chorus
     
  June Fly On The Wall; The War Is Over, If You Want It
     
2003 ~    
  August on Patrick's Sojourn to Berlin
     
  July Queer Boyz Nite; Making Lemonade
   
  June ~ July Naked Onstage
 
  May Patrick's Cabaret Benefit; Dance Fest Germany; May Day; Isherwood
 
  March Frozen Tears
 
  January Shinders to Shinders
 
2002 ~    
  December 5 Minutes of Fame
 
  November Anger
 
  September Frozen Tears


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