Curriculum Vitae
Performance Projects:
May 2009-presentDrive By Drag – CreatorCreated and participated in an ongoing series of public drag performances with visual/performing artist Dani Lamorte - to transform public space into queer space.
Featured documentation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS0SitG3uro
http://www.facebook.com/drivebydrag
March 2013-presentBoltini Lounge/Bar – Featured Performer
Designs and performs a weekly solo cabaret show in Champaign, IL
Collaborative Projects/Press:
Forthcoming 2014Trans-Q TelevisionStarred in a segment for Carnegie Mellon University’s Trans-Q Television series which highlights contemporary queer performance and thought.
November 2013Curdled
Performed with Mikey McParlane, Scott Andrew and Erin Womack. Charracter was projected into a hybrid haunted house space at Bunker Projects in Pittsburgh, PA.
Feb 2013/March 2012Neráides: Fall of the Subterrestrial Hive
Starred in a video project directed by Scott Andrew, which was screened at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City and at MOCA in Los Angeles as part of the book/DVD project by Suzie Silver and Encyclopedia Destructica, Strange Attractors: Investigations in Non-Humanoid Extraterrestrial Sexualities. http://extraterrestrialsexuality.org/strange-attractors-the-book/
June 2012Drift By Drag
Drive By Drag – in collaboration with the community art project The Drift, performed unsolicited on the Ohio River at the Three Rivers Regatta in Pittsburgh, PA. http://www.driftpgh.com
Persona
Performed in Persona, by the Norwegian performance artist Ane Lan, which was part of the Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival at Defibrillator Gallery in Chicago, IL.
September 2009Featured Artist: Open Thread
Selected as the featured artist for the arts organization/small press Open Thread. http://www.openthread.org/blog/index.php/2009/09/30/featured-artist-veronica-bleaus
July 2009Planet Dragulon
Collaborated with visual artists Michael McParlane and Scott Andrew to create a multi-channel video piece, which played in the art gallery Future Tenant, based in Pittsburgh, PA. http://www.michaelmcparlane.net/planetdragulon.php
March 2008Eidolon
Performed with visual artist Michael McParlane in a single channel video piece, which was exhibited at the “Half Human-Half Amazing” show at Brillobox, in Pittsburgh, PA. http://www.michaelmcparlane.net/wallpaper.php
Community Involvement/Performances:
September 2013Featured performer in Champaign-Urbana 4th Annual Pride Festival.
August 2013
FOREPLAY: A pre-conference cabaret, part of The Association for Theater in Higher Education’s (ATHE) annual conference “P[L]AY: Performance, Pleasure, and Pedagogy” in Orlando, FL.
May 2013
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Unit for Criticism and Interpretive Theory, closing day performance in “The Eighties, Theory and Practice.”
June 2012/2011
Annual fundraiser for Pittsburgh-based Mattress Factory Art Museum’s – “Urban Garden Party.”
June 2011
Fundraiser for the Pittsburgh-based Animal Rescue League Shelter & Wildlife Center – “Gays for Strays.”
February 2011
Fundraiser for Pittsburgh Party for a Purpose, which benefited the community organization Braddock Redux.
October 2010
Annual fundraiser for Pittsburgh’s Artists Image Resource and community party with visual artist Scott Andrew.
Halloween fundraiser for Pittsburgh Persad Center – “Spell-Bound.”
June 2010
Annual fundraiser for Pittsburgh’s Gay, Lesbian, East-End Neighborhood Development Association (GLENDA) – “Divas for Diversity.”
May 2010
Delivered a mini-lecture/workshop about drag concepts and execution at the Gay nand Lesbian Community Center of Pittsburgh.
April 2010
Annual spring drag show at Penn State University, as part of the undergraduate GLBTQ organization’s Pride Week.
March 2010
“Peno_Peno” pre-release party for Open Thread Regional Review Vol. 2, which benefited the Pittsburgh-based arts organization Open Thread, and Pittsburgh-based art gallery Future Tenant.
October 2009
Performed, and facilitated a discussion about drag concepts which was hosted by the University of Pittsburgh’s undergraduate GLBTQ organization.
August 2009
Hosted and performed in a variety show segment of “Hothouse” –an annual fundraiser for the Pittsburgh-based arts grant organization, The Sprout Fund.
April 2006-2010
Created, organized, and performed in an annual undergraduate drag show at the University of Pittsburgh that has raised more than 4500 dollars of donations for the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force since its inception.
Education:
2011-presentUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignMA/PhD Program
Area of Focus: Queer Theory, Performance Studies
Dissertation:
Radiant Divas: In Pursuit of the Queer SublimeMy dissertation will focus on an archive of live, performing bodies who range from the high-camp of Kylie Minogue to the avant-garde power of Grace Jones. In providing such an investigation of these Divas in queer culture, I wish to explore how such divas are actually essential to the constitution of queerness as such. Namely, that the respective aesthetic and performative techniques of each diva (whether through music video, short film, or live concert performance) create the affective terrain that allow for utopic alternatives to normativity. My suspicion is that this affective and aesthetic power of the diva on stage will merit a new meditation on the power of the sublime, and what such sublimity might be able to offer the future of queerness.
Professional Development:
Participant in Northwestern University’s 2013 Summer Institute of Performance Studies: “Performance, Technology, and Biopolitics.”Symposium/Conference Presentations:
“Usurping the Queen—M.I.A., Madonna, and Questionably Queer Visual Rhetorics” – Presented at “Global Queerness: Sexuality, Citizenship, and Human Rights in the 21st Century.” Wooster College (Oct. 6, 2012).“ ‘Yes We Camp!’—Aggressively Queer Guerilla Tactics and Drive By Drag.” - Presented at the Association for Theater in Higher Education Conference “P[L]AY: Performance, Pleasure, and Pedagogy.” Orlando, FL (Aug 1-4 2013).
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