This week, I had the privilege of interviewing a queer artist, educator, and researcher, Alexandra Barbier (she/her).
Alex is a multidisciplinary dance maker and performer currently on faculty at the University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign. Originally from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Alex has been dancing her whole life and trained primarily in ballet, tap, and jazz, before beginning her undergraduate degree at Louisiana State University. She danced on and off with a contemporary company called Of Moving Colors In Baton Rouge for roughly eight seasons between 2005 and 2017. In 2017, Alex decided to shift her focus from performance, to choreography, by pursuing a Masters of Fine Arts in Dance at the University of Utah. Since graduating in the spring of 2020, she has continued making queer dance and educating the next generation through her University faculty position.
We had a lot to talk about, but here are some of my favorite questions asked and answered.
Cole: I know you use the term queer in a lot of your research and teaching practices. Is that a term you would identify yourself with? Or how did you come to choose that term?
Barbier: Yeah, for a really long time I used lesbian. When I came out, I had been dating men and then realized I was attracted to women. There was about a ten year period in my life where I was only with women and in that time I thought... oh, okay I’m a lesbian. Then, out of nowhere I met this man that I fell so deeply in love with and thought, this ruins the lesbianism, I think. So I started using the term queer because it feels more expansive than a lot of the other labels. Queer just feels like I have space to be all kinds of things within it. Even if I go through experiences in my life where I am attracted to something else, or it becomes something else, I am still queer.
Cole: I agree with that wholeheartedly.I find the language we use so interesting because I also used the term lesbian for a while, before starting to grapple with gender. Now the term represents both my sexuality, and my gender queer identity.
Cole: Going off of that, can you identity the first work you created that intersected with your queer identity?
Barbier: Absolutely! I made it in 2018, during my first year of grad school. I was grappling with some feelings about this relationship I was in with a woman, and another woman that I was interested in and just, ah, feelings are hard! I was questioning whether we all feel this complex all of the time? The answer is yes, we do. So I began working on this photography project before getting involved with an organization in Salt Lake City called the BW Bastian Foundation. This organization gives money to people to do queer things.
Cole: That’s so cool!
Barbier: Yes, very cool. They reached out to the University with an application process for students working on projects about queerness, to get financial support. I submitted a proposal, and I got it! So this little photography project morphed into a 40 minute dance work with choreography, monologue, storytelling, voiceover work, and photos projected during the performance. The work was about relationships between queer women whether it be friendships, romantic relationships, and I dont know what we are but we are queer and spend time together relationships. The cast was eight people, who all identified as queer women. It was my very first work that was truly about queerness, and it was a big deal.
Cole: I love the multidisciplinary elements within everything that you create. It brings an added depth and intention to the overall work.
Cole: Slight pivot in topics. Have you ever had an experience where your expressions of queerness and/or self identity inhibited your ability to focus in dance spaces?
Barbier: I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t think that I’ve had that experience. I think the only reason why I haven’t is because I am incredibly picky about the spaces I put myself in. If I have an inkling that I’m gonna show up and get a hard time for being who I am, I don’t fuck with it.
Cole: As you shouldn’t!
Barbier: What is interesting about that question is I immediately tried to think of negative experiences. There are definitely spaces I have been in that had room to be more queer inclusive even though they weren’t “queer bashing”. I didn’t walk in and feel uncomfortable, but I know that the people facilitating weren’t doing their best to be cognizant of the language they use and had gendered expectations of people in the room.
Cole: I have also had similar experiences.
Barbier: Yes, so now when I think about showing up in teaching spaces I recognize there is a lot of extra work required to make that safe space. I think about making a checklist before stepping into the room with the things I need to do to make sure everyone feels seen, and safe, and comfortable.
Cole: That’s encouraging to hear, that with careful selection and research it's possible to have a positive experience in dance spaces as a queer person.
Barbier: Yes, and post coming out I was training mostly in the realm of modern dance which didn’t have that extreme binary of masucline and feminine in the same way that ballet does.
Cole: That makes sense, training in ballet most of my life I’ve had difficulty finding my place in such a strict, cis-het environment.
Cole: Finally, what does the phrase “queer art” mean to you?
Barbier: This is such a big question. I think I have multiple definitions for it. Any art that is made by a person who identifies as queer, is queer art. Because it is impossible to remove your lens and your experience from what you’re making, even if what you’re making is not intended to be about queerness.
Cole: Yes, I agree with that.
Barbier: I also teach a lot about the word queer, its many meanings throughout history, and how initially it just meant “not the norm”. It wasn’t originally connected to anyone’s identity or orientation. Sometimes I think that queer art is queer if it is breaking away from whatever the normal art trends are at the time. Maybe even if the person doesn’t identify as a queer person. I am open to a lot of conversation and argumentation around that answer, but I think ultimately queer art is exciting because it gets to have so many different meanings, definitions, shifts, and changes.
“Queer art is indefinable, sometimes”
Alex Barbier
Many many thanks to Alexandra for her beautiful offerings of experience and wisdom from working in the dance industry as a queer woman. She is an inspiration to me as an artist, choreographer, and overall cool human. I have linked below Alex’s website, and Instagram if you are interested in following along on her creative journey.
That’s all for now!
Kennedy
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