I knew that Atlanta was a cultural hotspot and even that it had a sizeable and involved queer community. I could not have guessed, however, how diverse its queer arts scene is. Fortunately, the new documentary Queer Moxie has brought me up to speed.
Queer Moxie goes beyond highlighting solely drag queens and kings—it has them share the spotlight with burlesque dancers, poets, comedians, musicians and more. Heather Provoncha and Leo Hollen Jr are the duo behind this project, and we recently got to talk to the directors about their film. We discussed the history of Atlanta’s queer performance art community, honoring heroes of yesterday and today, the community’s DIY aesthetic and more.
AfterEllen.com: What made you want to create this film?
Heather Provoncha: It was kind of an evolution for me. I was hosting a cabaret to celebrate some artists in Atlanta and saw many artists from different places and looked around and recognized that this was kind of phenomenal and wasn’t really being captured. I just started recording from that point, trying to celebrate and document what I thought was both fantastic and something evolving right in front of me.
AE: Leo, when did you get involved?
Leo Hollen Jr: I got involved about three, four years ago. I just really wanted to help celebrate this community.
photo by Jon Dean
AE: How long has this phenomenon been going on for?
HP: That’s why I really am excited to do this film: it’s actually not new. The difference is that drag has really had the luxury and wonderful ability to have many stages and many outlets of expression. It happened most in bars, so it was easier and more people knew about it. But I think gay and queer people have been being funny and writing poems and doing burlesque in smaller places for a very long time. I wanted to celebrate drag as well, but I more wanted to celebrate all the diversity of expression that there was.
Now that being said, about 2005 I started to—I dated a burlesque performer in Atlanta at that time and started to realize and see that queer burlesque was really taking off. In the early 2000s, neo-burlesque was starting itself and having a resurgence, queer and otherwise. Through that, probably because of some of the success that drag queens had, queer women—and also men as Boylesque started—started to take up space on stage as well. Queer comedy has really hit its stride in the last couple of years and is growing. The spoken word has been around for a number of decades and I think has been a very safe place for folks in the margins for a very long time. The difference is from a public and an awareness perspective. When we say “queer performance,” most people’s kneejerk is, “Oh, you mean drag.” So I think it’s a lot more that films like ours and other moments will bring awareness and celebration.
AE: Obviously there have been documentaries that have highlighted drag queens and kings. I’ve even seen one or two that highlight queer burlesque performers and lesbian comedians, but they’re rare. You’ve taken all of that and added poets, actors, musicians and photographers into the mix. I’m probably even missing a few. Were you purposely looking to be different? Or can you simply not tell the story of Atlanta’s queer arts scene without highlighting all these individuals?
HP: It’s exactly the point actually. Neither of us are from Atlanta—we live here now and are very much in love with it. But we’ve often said that this is a universal story told in a specific place. The diversity was kind of the point. I feel that lots of people came out in different shows and saw this diverse spectrum of performance and saw these options of different ways to express themselves. The film is actually kind of celebrating and highlighting the scene and the audience and the community that has evolved out of it as much as the performers that are in it. So it was actually very intentional. We wanted that no particular group had the spotlight, so to speak. That everyone is represented on this stage, and therefore everyone is equal in their representation on the stage. And that was really our driving force. We really were trying to show the evolution of queer.
LHJ: It’s also really important to us as filmmakers to make sure that we do try and do something different and we take these ideas and these artists and make a visual representation that would represent them as well as represent us. Like, “How do you make a queer film? What does queer look like?” And I think that it’s going to be raw, it’s going to be real, it’s not going to be the same, it’s going to incorporate all different types of images and art and styles and people.
AE: This film is a love letter to queer performance art in Atlanta. To your knowledge, what makes the Atlanta queer scene unique amongst other North American cities with a significant queer population? As well, where does the Southern aspect come into play here?
HP: I think being in the South is as dynamic as one would imagine it to be, not being from here, and is as prideful as can be as anyone from any region that forms an identity. Both of those things come into play, where there is a lot of pride that folks have inherently. Not even necessarily about being from the South—just there’s a lot of pride that folks have here. Other major queer cities like New York and San Francisco have had the luxury of being out and proud and having visible revolutions for decades now that it is maybe easier or has been easier at times to be out and expressive. So it has been a revolutionary act longer in the South to express oneself outside of the straight and narrow. That all comes into play, and I think that’s very much guided by the pride and confidence and unique identity that comes from the South. It’s such a diverse population of people coming from lots of different places and that all comes into play when the art is acted, performed, sung or spoken. The South is naturally represented in each of these people.
AE: How important was it for you to balance the history and present state of Atlanta’s queer performance art community? How did that factor into the directing and editing processes?
LHJ: You start with and you make sure that you definitely give praise and honor to the people that came first because they are the ones, like Heather said, that came and gave the stage and back in the day that was queer. I think we both wanted to make sure that we used that as a jumping off point and made sure that everything else was balanced from that and that we showed how the evolution occurred. It was really important to me to make sure that there was some sort of symmetry in this to show that the past does reflect the future and the present is always the combination of hoping for the future and also reflecting the past. I think that we did a good job.
HP: I’m 43-years-old, so I feel I’m part of the pivot generation. I feel the generation before really had to overcome some adversity and had some hard times. Now there’s an entire generation that grew up with gay people on TV and people can get married. It was very important for me that people that have these luxuries now remember where we came from and that people that fought that hard have an opportunity to see all that people have now as a result of their hard work.
AE: Why instead of focusing on one or two artists per performance style did you instead decide to include what seems like as many queer artists as possible?
HP: It was really important to me because we were representing a community and showing that anybody fits in. It is a celebration because I wanted to show more, but it was also really important to represent as many different expressions as possible and to show how ultimately there’s so many ways to overlap. It was more that the community was who was represented, and any of these individuals are dynamic and full. What hopefully you saw is a wonderful tapestry that comes together to make a community and an expression and has helped generations of people find their way when they were not represented. We looked at this as the ultimate stage. We wanted to show that everyone can be represented on this stage and that is the point. You can have you. We didn’t define queer; we showed queer. And the only way to do that was to show all of its different facets. This is ultimately a universal story told in a specific place. Hopefully, you can watch it being from anywhere and you may not know these people, but they make you think of your people.
AE: Several performers in the film talk about the do-it-yourself aesthetic. This film in many ways fits into that. Now I know you didn’t have a big budget, but looking back, do you believe the end product is what’s appropriate given that it’s a more accurate reflection of what the community has to work with?
HP: Absolutely. We actually talked about it. There was a point where we recognized that art was mirroring art, and that’s exactly what we wanted. Because ultimately I’ve always said I wanted this to feel like if you didn’t have access to a show, this was like going to a show. The DIY aesthetic was very prevalent because it’s very much what this community had. There wasn’t a lot of money. To present that in a polished way would not be authentic. It would’ve been great if someone was like, “Hey, y’all! Here’s a fantastic amount of money to do this film.” I would’ve been like, “Fantastic. We’ll pay Leo and us back. But no, it’s not going to change how we do this.” It is very much intended to be a true representation of the people.
LHJ: There’s certain ways to tell certain stories. There was no other way to tell this story then to go and make it as real and raw as possible to reflect these artists.
AE: How many years went into this film and what kind of community support did you get along the way?
HP: I probably turned on my camera in 2008. The interviews formally started in 2009. It was absolutely community support, and a lot of it was, “Hey, I’ve got this dream. You want to carry a camera? You want to help out? Can I get in the door for free?” “Hey job, can you give me an advance so I can buy a camera?” And then as it evolved and took shape and was easier to present to a community, then we did it much like we would want to and everything the community would do we would have a show and a fundraiser. One, it was a great way to be involved with the community, but, two, it was a way to celebrate the artists we were celebrating. We had fundraisers where we would have shows, and people could see artists that were featured. We often filmed a lot of those shows. Some of the footage is included in there. It was a way for people to be able to get excited, help us out and also get a glimpse into the world that was being celebrated. Then we evolved and did an Indiegogo campaign to kind of help us push through to the end a little bit and are continuing to get a little help. But this is absolutely as independent as independent can be. It probably has been paid more by our paychecks than anything else and the absolute generous spirit of friends and artists who beloved in this film and, more so, this community and celebrating it.
AE: What has audience reaction to the film been like so far?
HP: It has been absolutely lovely. We jokingly fist-pump every time someone cries. But one of the things I will forever be most proud of is that we gave an opportunity to be in the spotlight some of the legends who have retired. They were able to come to these premieres. They were really able to be celebrated by the community and their fans and have this wonderful moment. That meant a great deal.
AE: Finally, do you plan to work on other projects that involve these performers and to continue working together?
HP: Yes to doing some films about some of the individual performers. We’re kind of looking at all of the different footage and who we’re going to feature and where we’re going to do some—whether it’s web series or other small films. Regardless, in the end, all of this footage will end up in an archive somewhere. It was never just for me. And yes, we have other projects. We have formed a production company. Through that, we are going to continue to do some documentary projects as well as some narrative features. What is really important to both of us is to represent and celebrate folks on the margins and folks that don’t have a lot of representation, screen or otherwise.
Queer Moxie plays at the Durban Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in South Africa on Aug. 27 and in a number of U.S. cities in September and October. Visit the movie’s website for more details.
