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“CampCamp,
or, The Persistence of Performing Queer”
Ray
Matthews
Performance
as Public Practice Program
University
of Texas-Austin
&
Silky Shoemaker
Independent
Artist
CampCamp! is Austin’s monthly queer open-mic
performance night. Operating
continuously for the past two years and never charging
admission, CampCamp! is an important local site of queer
community-making. Offering an alternative to bar-scene socializing, CampCamp!
gathers LGBTQ individuals together through experimental
and collective performance.
Held outdoors at a coffee shop in South Austin, it
transforms an otherwise unused space into the geographical
meeting grounds for queers from across Austin, and
increasingly, from across the United States.
The aesthetic of CampCamp! is decidedly do-it-yourself
(D.I.Y.), enforcing its queer and anti-capitalist
commitments. A
shimmering, yellow bedspread curtains the dirt stage.
Hanging house lights, pulled from our living rooms earlier
that day, dangle from the live oak trees, casting light on
the stage and audience alike, refusing a division that
sets performers apart from the audience.
The audience is, in fact, full of performers,
whether they walk on stage or not.
The event that transpires each month is
collectively conceived and executed.
Over the course of the night, ten to twelve
distinct performances occur, as people sign-up to take the
stage. These
may include poets, musicians, dancers, lectors,
multi-media performances, satirists, visual artists and
chefs. But it not simply this range that distinguishes CampCamp!
from a traditional open-mic, where performances and
performers are isolated in their individuating work.
CampCamp! is framed by a new and specific them each
month, chosen to stimulate socially relevant, critical
analysis through performance.
The performances intersect with the theme,
exploding it into multiple voices and tangents, creating
what Walter Benjamin might call queer “constellations”
of meaning.
In this presentation, we,
the producers and hosts of CampCamp!, mark CampCamp!’s
contribution to queer studies by examining the historical
queer performance traditions it draws upon, as well as
charting the innovative ways in which it contributes to a
contemporary understanding of queer self and
community-making. We see creativity as a vital element of
community and social/self change, validating and inspiring
queer identities that are influx, in practice, in process,
and in performance. Our
methodology in this presentation reflects this belief,
combining traditional academic writing, performative
writing, and live performance.
Ray
Matthews:
is an M.F.A. student in the Performance as Public Practice
program at UT-Austin. She received her B.A. from Bard
College in Integrated Arts/Theatre in 2002.
Her present scholarship uses performance analysis
to examine queer community making, pop-culture icons, and
the integration of theory with practice.
Ray has been involved in several activist and queer
performance projects; she creates both collaborative and
solo work, and she is committed to uses performance to
engage community.
In 2004, she toured with An
Olive on the Seder Plate,
a multimedia performance exploring how Jewish
people wrestle with the Israeli military occupation of
Palestine. Ray is also cofounder and host of CampCamp,
Austin’s monthly queer performance night.
In 2006, Ray was a core artist in “Movable Feast,”
a performance journey that brought over fifty
collaborators together to create a 24-hour performance in
multiple sites in the city of Austin.
Silky Shoemaker
(panelist) lives and works in Austin, TX.
Her work is informed by her queerness, her feminism,
and a strong do-it-yourself, anti-capitalist philosophy.
Co-host of CAMPCAMP!, Austin’s monthly queer performance
night, she is primarily known for her performance work,
but is also a painter and installation artist.
Part kindergarten class play and part gay revival
tent, her performances center on themes of queer community,
and imagine possibility through the use of camp and
monologuing. Her
art has exhibited at galleries nationwide including the
Chicago Transgenderqueer Film Festival, PILOT TV
(Chicago), A-Space (Bronxville NY), Y Que? Texas Wide
Queer Art Show (Lubbock, TX), the Art Palace (Austin TX)
and the Opera House (Austin, TX).
She has shared the stage with many illustrious
characters such as Bitch (of Bitch and Animal), Lesbians
on Ecstacy (Montreal), Gretchen Phillips (2 Nice Girls),
and Dynasty Handbag (Brooklyn).
She is also organizer of the annual music festival
GaybiGayGay and a founding member of the Chicago Boys’
Choir.
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