Left to right: Photo of Charles Rice-González / Courtesy of the artist
Photo of Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel / Courtesy of the artist
Presented as part of Historias with The Clemente and as part of Performing the Bronx
To join this free experience and to received specific directions as to where to meet, contact Nicolás at indioclaro@hotmail.com or click HERE
Sunday, May 4, 12 Noon, 2025
Meet at BAAD! 2474 Westchester Avenue
Charles Rice-González and Nicolás convene with a group to activate LGBTQ+ space – outdoors in the open –through writing. This event is co-shaped by all participants as a ritual that honors the queer Bronxites who have been here before and who have courageously inhabited our neighborhoods. Taking this as a point of inspiration, all of those present give this experience tangible form through an altar in flux, to be infused with the writings that emerge, the devotions that arise, and any other offerings to this impermanent socio-emotional sculpture.
Queer presence in the Bronx continues to inform the cultures, activisms and spirits of this part of New York City where many of those existing at the edges of society have played a central role in the struggle for social justice. Charles will guide us all into the herstories/theirstories/ourstories/histories whose roots run deep into the rich soil of our borough, and which have allowed many of us to flower.
What are the catalyst organizations, groups and individuals – some no longer existing or alive in physical form – who must be remembered and their impetus invoked into our now?
Please bring a simple offering for the altar.
For directions to BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance click HERE
The closest train is the number 6 to Westchester Square in the Bronx. BAAD! and then walk a couple of blocks.
Charles Rice-González, born in Puerto Rico and reared in the Bronx, is a writer, long-time community and LGBTQ activist, and co-founder of BAAD! The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance and an Associate Professor at Hostos Community College - CUNY. He received an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Goddard College. His debut novel Chulito (Magnus Books 2011) has received nearly a dozen awards including honors from the American Library Association and the National Book Critics Circle. His writing's been published in over a dozen journals and anthologies, and he co-edited From Macho to Mariposa: New Gay Latino Fiction. His play I Love Andy Gibb was published in Blacktino Queer Performance: A Critical Anthology, and Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo has been produced each year at BAAD! since 2004.
His honors include a MacDowell Fellowship, Letras Boricuas Fellowship, a Lannan Foundation Fellowship, a PEN Writing as Activism Fellowship, the Lambda Literary Foundation's Dr. Betty Berzon Emerging Writer Award, an Audre Lorde scholarship from the ZAMI Foundation, and a Gay City News Impact Award for his activism and contributions to advancing the lives of LGBTQ people.
In 1998, Charles co-founded, with award-winning choreographer/dancer Arthur Aviles, BAAD! - The Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance is a cultural organization and theater that presents empowering works for women, people of color, and the LGBTQ community.
He serves on the boards of the Bronx Council on the Arts and the National Association of Latino Art and Cultures, where he is currently chair of both. Website
This event will be documented through video and photographs. Those attending must be okay with this.
To join this gathering, please contact Nicolás at indioclaro@hotmail.com or click HERE
ABOUT: PERFORMING THE BRONX
Since 2015 Nicolás Dumit Estévez Raful Espejo Ovalles Morel has invited a group of remarkable Bronxites to co-develop actions embedded in the day-to-day of our beloved home borough. The gestures that emerge are presented in private spaces, as well as in the Bronx's public realm, and focus on the roots that weave these visionaries with specific communities and neighborhoods in our part of the City. Performing the Bronx is an expansion of Nicolás’s ongoing in honoring, recovering, reclaiming and remembering herstories/histories/theirstories of the area’s neighbors and trailblazers that run the risk of being effaced by time, lost in the midst of neighborhoods in flux, or dismissed by dominant discourses that often position themselves at the center of the conversation.
Past participants: Arthur Avilés, Bill Aguado, Benny Bonilla, Mili Bonilla, Caridad De La Luz ‘La Bruja’, Dr. Drum, Ana ‘ROKAFELLA’ García, Reverend Danilo Lachapel, Wanda Salamán, and Rhina Valentin
Performing the Bronx as a whole has been supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Casita Maria’s South Bronx Culture Trail 2020, and the Bronx Council on the Arts. It has also received love, space and support from Mothers on the Move, BronxNet TV, The Andrew Freedman Home, and BAAD! Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance.
The 2025 chapters of Performing the Bronx with Lisa Ortega, and Charles Rice-González are presented with support from Historias, a multi-year programmatic initiative led by The Clemente in partnership with LxNY and supported by the Rauschenberg Foundation. Historias celebrates the transformative impact of Latinx communities in NYC through research, artistic interpretations, and public engagement.
