Author: Pedra Pepa

Pedra Pepa (they/them) is a Venezuelan-raised, Minneapolis-based queer dancer/performance maker. A 2022 McKnight Choreographer Fellow, they are founder/director of Viva la Pepa. Their works are fueled by the overlapping values of Latinx and Queer cultures: melodrama, passion, decadence, and sensuality. Pedra continues research weaving Latinx immigrant identities, queer (gender/sexuality/activism) histories across the Americas: across time/colonizations, and nature, with an exhibition and a performance at the Red Eye Theater November 10-13 & 16-19, manifesting materially in their most recent 331 residency at Rosy Simas Danse Space, continued in Guna Yala, May 2022. Pedra co-directs a children and family theater program Drag Story Hour, today on their fifth season supported by the Minnesota Regional Arts Council, developing singles, music videos, television pilots, and their grand live musical coming end of October. An inaugural Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, Pedra continues a transnational collaboration with Argentinian choreographer Celia Argüello, spending time in natural landscapes researching the nature of the encounter. Pedra developed their recent work Contained, Alive as a U of MN Cowles visiting artist, in the Berkshires (MA), with Red Eye Theater, and through Candy Box Festival. Their previous work, Holy Doña, re-imagines the crucifixion as a queer performance ritual; they performed a preliminary iteration of this work in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Pedra is currently a teaching artist with Upstream Arts and is softly entertaining adults as her draglesque persona.