Meet BOSS Downtown

BOSS, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I’ve been putting on shows since before I can remember— my favorite games to play as a child were giving Celine Dion concerts in my garage and dancing with my mother to Diana Ross vinyls. I’ve dedicated most of my life and energy to studying dance, music and performance. Throughout my formative training years I never questioned my love for performing, but there was a persistent underlying feeling of “not quite right” that ran through my collective experience. About two years ago a friend invited me to a drag show called The Queer Agenda at Stacy’s at Melrose in Phoenix. I had never seen drag before, and that first show for me felt like remembering a long lost dream. I saw people with fantasies like mine, and an audience who delighted in them. Since then drag has become the focal point of my creative and social experience— I’ve found my family and myself in the drag community here in Phoenix. After attending the Queer Agenda almost every week for a year and a half, I’m now a resident performer in that show and others, sharing stages with the very people I once aspired to be.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The most challenging part of my journey thus far has been the lack of representation for who I could be as a performer. For young performers, the experience of dance, theatre, and music in schools/studios etc. is heavily ruled by the gender binary. Girls and boys play out the same cis/heteronormative characters relating within antiquated structures, and trans/GNC identities are virtually non-existent. While my mentors were brilliant and generous folks who did their best to sharpen my craft, I felt limited by the same fragile, demure, politely pretty and submissive tropes I was offered to embody. As I was exposed to more options about what girls, boys, and everyone in between can be, I came into my power and activated latent, vastly diverse characters within me. Ultimately, bridging the worlds between what I love and who I am required me to see others who were doing the same thing, and that took me 26 years to find. My hope is that young up-and-coming performers are able to see themselves in a spectrum of roles, and know that their gender and sexuality does not have to limit who they can be in the world of performance— or in the world at all.

Please tell us about your work
My work spans the spectrum of performance art from drag to contemporary dance— but at the core, every BOSS work investigates Power, Presence, and Vulnerability through the universal medium of embodiment. I am fascinated by the body’s ability to communicate, challenge, and evoke visceral experiences, within itself and in the bodies of those witnessing. For me this can manifest as anything from a song, to a still image, to a durational installation or highly physical performance. No matter how the work materializes, it’s my hope each time to incite a total feeling of empowerment and a humble sense of wonder. BOSS performances invite audiences to both see themselves and lose themselves in the spectacle. I believe we’re here to feel as vulnerable and powerful as possible, and performance enables me to realize that for myself and invite others along.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
The only thing I would have done differently if I started my journey over would be to forgive myself for the un-belonging I felt all of those years in school, dance class, choir, theatre, band, etc. Although I related to others with shared passions, I couldn’t name the queerness that made me feel so “different”, and I internalized that social anxiety in a self-deprecating way. If I could go back and alchemize that fear into love, I absolutely would.

Contact Info:

• Email: itstheboss.booking@gmail.com
• Instagram: @__itstheboss__ / @feedqueerfamiliesphx

Image Credit:
Paulann Egelhoff, Belle Boche Photography, Christina Faye, Joel Maduro

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