1) What was your inspiration to create Virgo Star?
Since I was a little boy, I loved Western Movies, especially Spaghetti Westerns. And I loved Sergio Leone’s cinematography: the wide-angle shots of canyons, the evocative and eerie sound design, and the Saloon scenes contained an impressive microcosm of adventurous individuals, rebels and outlaws. And I loved them! Then growing up, I slowly came to the realization that Film and Television Westerns have historically addressed Western and ‘Cowboys’ iconography with preconceived notions of gender stereotypes. And I felt I didn’t fit in: I didn’t look, or act like the Cowboys in the Western Movies I loved so much.
When Daniel Diaz, Philip Treviño and I first met to discuss Virgo Star – we immediately agreed that we wanted to portray Cowboys from our queer perspective, to be able to relate to their stories, and to ultimately make a statement on cowboys’ toxic masculinity and machismo depicted in mainstream media.
2) Why did you choose to name this production Virgo Star?
Virgo Star is the 4th in a cycle of works devised by a collective of LGBTQ artists. Other projects included: Gemini Stars; Gemini Stars/ Scorpio; CowboysCowgirls (Sagittarius).
Each project is conceived and loosely titled around the Astrological chart as way of fashioning a storytelling platform both universal and humorous. The chart characters establish an artistic problem to solve and veer the dialogue away from the didacticism of social political commentary and towards a more personal and delicate tone.
3) How can you explode the myth of the American Cowboy?
Virgo Star blends elements drawn from mythic, real, cinematic and clichéd forms of the American West and their roles in constructing our ideas of masculinity and femininity, to explore and explode how these ideas have been used to marginalize minority communities and often justify practices to expunge them.
The collective – including Agosto Machado, Beth Graczyk, Anabella Lenzu, Bree Breeden, Gerard Minaya, Hao Bai, Gavin Price, Jon Burklund, Dmitri Barcomi - has been searching ways to relate to familiar themes we love so much – including Western music, Cowboys & Cowgirls iconography and Saloon fights - but presenting them from our queer perspective and drawing both from collective and individual experiences.
4) Do you have a favorite Western movie?
The Good, The Bad, The Ugly by Sergio Leone.
5) What makes Virgo Star different from other Pioneers Go East productions?
The work is aligned with Pioneers Go East Collective’s mission to empower LGBTQ and Feminist Artists.
The first work-in-progress was devised with Agosto Machado (who you’ll see in video interviews during the performance) who is a downtown icon, activist and witness of GLM (Gay Liberation Movement) and the Stonewall riots.
Differently than previous works, artists featured in VIRGO STAR have devised some of the text, while other excerpts are inspired by cinematic scripts – including Western Movies such as Red River with Montgomery Cliff.
Our hope with this new work it to create a socially relevant project that resonates with contemporary lives in New York City. And to engage a broad cross-section of New York City audiences with LGBTQ performance and politics.
6) What does working at La MaMa mean to you?
Since 2001, La MaMa has been like a family to me: I met Ellen Stewart in Italy when I was still in school; and after I graduated she invited me to La MaMa!
I’ve met wonderful artists, collaborators, and friends thanks to La MaMa’s expanded community. I’m happy when I’m away working on other projects; but it feels good to come back to La MaMa.
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Virgo Star
November 14 - December 01, 2019
$25 Tickets; $20 Student/Senior Tickets [+$1 Facility Fee]
World Premiere
By Pioneers Go East Collective
Virgo Star explores and explodes the myth of the American Cowboy. An underground, kinetic ride through the Cowboy myths performed from a queer perspective, this dance-theatre work fuses personal storytelling and movement to re-create scenes from Western Movies.
