Get to know some of the artists who’ll be sharing their art with us at special events this month:
Pochas Radicales: Blanca & Andrea
Blanca Stacey Villalobos is a queer pocha originally from southern California who works and creates in Portland, Oregon. As a woman of color, a pocha (an americanized Mexican), bisexual, and a gemini, her self and way of life have always been doubted by those around her. Villalobos’ fluidity frightens, her 3rd tongue(spanglish) makes her less ‘authentic’, and she has been defined as an antagonist due to her cultural upbringing. Her work is a celebration of the various movements she inhabits daily. Villalobos is content with the spaces she encounters and feels that she should not be pulled to those ‘either/or’ situations because there are wonders beyond that.
Andrea Elena Telles is a queer pocha living in the Pacific Northwest, who works everyday to proudly claim her place in a land that is continually trying to erase her. She hails from California where her roots lay and is dedicated to the uplifting of herself and of the countless others who struggle to be recognized in a society that was not built for them. Andrea’s preferred forms of meditation include: creating safe and sacred spaces for the perpetually oppressed, challenging archaic notions of gender and sexuality, and dancing their ass off to cumbia beats with other jotxs! Wepaaaaa!
Blanca & Andrea will be panelists on February 11
Daniel Girón
Originally from Mexico, Daniel is a well-rounded dancer with a background in Latin partner dance styles, House, Waacking, Contemporary and Vogue. He is the Father / Founder of House of ADA and is on a mission to help cultivate a strong Vogue community in the North West, teaching the history and fundamentals of this style on a weekly basis at Vitalidad Movement Art Center in Portland.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXOABIMWR14
Daniel will be a panelist on February 11
Elisa Chavez
Elisa Chavez is a poet and novelist based in Seattle, WA. She has represented Seattle’s Rain City Poetry Slam as a member of their national team in 2014, and as their Women of the World poetry slam representative the following year. She was the Seattle Review of Books’ poet in residence for January of 2017.
Elisa will be performing her poetry on February 16!
