Cabaret Brings Trans Community of Color to Spotlight

GayRVA Staff
October 13, 2009

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Read More: Gay Community Center of Richmond, GCCR, Mangos with Chili, Trans, Transgendered

The Gay Community Center of Richmond presents Mangos with Chili’s Splendor and Grit: The Stunning South Tour 2009 on Wednesday, October 28 at 8 p.m.  The show mixes dance with story to tell the tales of those in the queer and transpeople of color communities.

Mangos with Chili is unique in being multi-racial, multi-genre, and multi-gender – we consciously curate artists whose genders span the gamut from transwoman to Two Spirit to femme to trans fag to gender non-conforming to non-trans queer men. We create community, build bridges, and foster cross-cultural dialogue by presenting breathtaking shows featuring queer and trans of color artists creating cutting-edge, high-caliber work to audiences and communities whose stories are not always represented onstage. Sharing much needed and little heard queer and trans of color stories brings queer and trans people of color out from isolation, helping QTPOC build networks of community, support, resources and survival.

Born into a family of migrant music makers, Mangos With Chili Co-Director Ms. Cherry Galette is a dancer, burlesque artist, choreographer, theater maker, and producer committed to the telling of post-colonial fairy tales of modern resistance that celebrate queer desires, histories, survivals, migrations, and revolutions through movement and performance. Mangos With Chili Co-Director Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha is a queer Sri Lankan writer, performer and teacher.

She is proud to be the queer femme mixed slut schoolteacher Sri Lankan granddaughter of her queer femme mixed slut schoolteacher Sri Lankan grandmothers. Skim mixes revolutionary visions and fiery rap lyrics with her sultry singing, while strumming a guitar. Her heart pounds as she drums with the passion of her Korean ancestry. Skim fuses the consciousness of third world peoples with the urban streets of U.S. cities. SKIM convinces ears to listen, bodies to dance, and hearts to open.

Maceo Cabrera Estévez hails from Brooklyn, New York and now lives in Oakland, California. Maceo is a performance artist, writer and long time text therapist. For the last 6 years The Lady Ms. Vagina Jenkins has titillated audiences all over the nation. Ever the ecdysiast exemplar, Ms. Jenkins acts defy audience expectations of what it means to be a woman of color and size. Through the lost art of the striptease Vagina Jenkins exhibits the kind of feminism that takes up space, and demands to be the center of attention.

All this while awing audiences and leaving them hot, bothered and wanting more, more, more! Amir Rabiyah lives in Oakland, California and is an Arab/queer/trans poet and performer. He is super excited to be performing with Mangos With Chili and to continue to honor his ancestors by being a rabble rouser. From local bars to amphitheaters, lip syncing to live singing, solos to productions, black boas to Pink Martini, Aleksa Manila has traveled as a performer across North America. Aleksa Manila is known in Seattle and beyond as a stellar drag artist, consummate host and community activist.

The Gay Community Center of Richmond is at 1407 Sherwood Avenue.

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