T.A.G.

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T.A.G. won accolades during the 2009 FronteraFest Short Fringe in Austin, Texas. It won the “Best of Week” and “Best of Fest” awards which were decided by a panel of judges.

An exploration of transgressive acts, T.A.G. asks audiences to consider the ways in which liberal politics, historical de jure segregation and gentrification intersect on city landscapes and queer marked bodies. The characters in T.A.G. include:

  • Billy – an older African American butch lesbian who frequently looks after other youngsters in the community.
  • Bus – a Latina lesbian, who was kicked out of the house by her family because of her refusal to hide her queerness and lives with Billy.
  • Nina, a.k.a. Encyclopedia Lady – an older woman of color and ghost who no one sees except Billy. In years past, she was Billy’s lover.
  • The Train - she pulls herself across the landscape. She groans and moans on her old tracks. She represents passing time, memory rising up from the land and tells the history of the city in snippets of railroad work songs.

The intergenerational relationship between Billy and Bus shows the connection between an ‘old school butch’ African-American lesbian who is completely enmeshed in her community and a younger generation of lesbians of color who do not have a living memory of the civil rights and farm workers movements. The train provides a narrative backdrop with an overview of how legalized segregation divided the city of Austin. T.A.G. is a commentary on how that segregation and the specter of gentrification affects queers of color in modern day Austin, but the setting could be any city in America.

T.A.G. provides an artistic archive of the history of queer people of color who live openly within segregated communities. An Austin Chronicle review described it as an “impressionistic montage” that is “visually arresting.”