Details about the tour, performances, artists, and workshops are listed below and can also be found all over this site.
Warmly,
Co-Organizers
Heather Acs & Damien Luxe
www.heelsonwheelsroadshow.com | heelsonwheelsroadshow@
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– Haley, student, Duke University 2010
The performance event uses a cabaret-style format to create an evening (or afternoon) of radical extravagance and thought-provoking glamour by Damien Luxe, Heather M. Acs, Shomi Noise, Adelaide Windsome [and one or two more performers to be determined for 2012]! These dazzling troublemakers rampage across the femme-inine spectrum serving up poetic theatre, silly buggery, dark whimsical puppetry, and rocknroll you can sink your heels into — all with a deep connection to feminist, queer, anti-oppression praxis!
Workshop topics include: construction of identity, gender and sexuality through feminist and LGBTQ lenses; LGBTQ histories; the practice of art as a tool for social change; using Boal and Friere to build movements; and studio classes on craft and technique in our specific disciplines.
“We travel with our work in order to connect each other and local folks with intra-community liberation strategies and to develop, as a complicated community, visions of a world we want to live in. By presenting art that supports each other’s self-determination and brilliance, we start to radically re-vision a world we can survive and thrive in — a world that deserves art and which needs all kinds of people making it.”
Our work has been featured at institutions such as Duke University, Southwestern University in Texas, Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, NY, and Concordia University in Montreal. The generous support of these institutions also allows us to share LGBTQ stories and build communities via performances at accessible community spaces and events throughout the east coast, midwest, and southern United States.
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We are New York City-based multi-disciplinary performing queer artists & activists who work professionally in a variety of media including theatre and performance, film/video, literature, music, print and web media, healing arts and community organizing.
“Touring with multi-disciplinary artists who work professionally in a variety of media means that we can share strategies from Theatre of the Oppressed to DIY, from zine writing to community forums, in order to bring a combination of glitter, gender justice and engaged art. We’ve got folks representing Australia to Bolivia to Appalachia; people who grew up working class, poor, and middle class; folks with graduate-level education and people who are self-taught; people who identify as trans, genderqueer, immigrant, multi-racial; survivors, organizers, and educators. Getting to shake up all this experience and celebrate the creativity that comes out is what storytelling and community art is about.”
– Heather Acs, Co-producer, Theatre Performance Artist, and NYC Teaching Artist
PERFORMANCE DESCRIPTION:
Heels on Wheels is a queer performance-art cabaret of radical extravagance and thought-provoking glamour. Our fearless performers rampage across the femme-inine spectrum serving up poetic theatre, silly buggery, dark whimsical puppetry, and rocknroll you can sink your heels into! Shomi Noise plays guitar and reads from her zine series “Building Up Emotional Muscle,” the story of her journey as a Bolivian immigrant navigating U.S. culture and finding herself through alternative music scenes. Damien Luxe leads the audience in a “Hot Pink Mass”-a satirical worship service for freaks and weirdos. Gepetta is a fabulist storyteller and puppeteer who queer-ifies fairy-tale structures into trans-narratives. Heather Acs uses theatrical storytelling and scientific theory to explore the formation of stars and her working-class, Appalachian roots. Amanda Cheong creates audio mash-ups of pop-culture music and political speeches, then dresses in fantastic costumes and lip-syncs to them with amazing props while the audience cheers! [Shomi Noise is also a fantastic DJ and Heels on Wheels often hosts dance parties along with our performances.]
CITIES/DATES:
We are available for entertainment events throughout the year, such as Performance/Cabaret series, Women’s Month programming, LGBTQ arts festival, and other pertinent diversity and cultural events. We are also available for booking as visiting artists with our own programming. Please see workshop descriptions below.
WORKSHOPS:
By pairing our performances with “how-to” interactive workshops and/or lectures that offer practical, hands-on techniques, participants are encouraged to deepen their critical analyses of cultural production, and will walk away with a collection of techniques, tools and technology necessary to create artistic work and sustainable projects in their own communities — with the ability to build their own fires! Topics include, but are not limited to: the construction of identity, gender and sexuality through feminist and LGBTQ lenses, LGBTQ histories, the practice of art as a tool for social change, and studio classes on craft and technique in our specific disciplines. Some titles include, “Stories on the Fringe: LGBTQ Histories through Performance,” “DIY New Media: Creating and Maintaining a Viable Internet Presence,” and “Interconnections: Gender Liberation and Social Justice.” For a full list of workshops and descriptions, please go to: http://www.