Redrawing over their erasing.

With the recent Metroline crap still stinking I thought I would go back into my archives and tell a few of ourstories about when some of my friends and I stood up against anyone trying to revise, rewrite, ignore, omit, erase, suppress, or deny our people. Straight culture has used every trick in their book to deny our people, trying to take them from us and ignoring the fact that some of the greats of the arts and of this world were lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer persons. 

The extraordinary philosopher, movement builder, writer, folklorist, historical researcher, gay man and former communist Harry Hay in his essay, “The Hidden Ones, Christianity’s First Closet Case” seeks to reconstruct a part of our stories that have been hetrosexualized, namely the story of who were the real Adam and Eve. This important corrective reconstruction returns our people to their rightful place busts open the lies of straight societies religions and allows us to reclaim  our rightful heritage. I submit this to our readers as an essay to read and ponder to see how full of tricks the dominant culture can be. Read it and shake your heads over the oppression that has come out of that one little false story which through the political opportunism of the Christians first sculpted and then governed the guilt of Westerners for over 2,000 years. Robert Graves states in his book “Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis,” that Jehovah clearly did not figure in the original myth. As he puts it, “It is the Mother of All Living (Eve)…who casts Adam out of her fertile riverine dominion because he has usurped some prerogative of hers.” Adam the temple prostitute denying his true gay nature, betraying his scared oaths,his service to the great Mother and joining in with the invading wandering tribes. This dear friends was the original sin. Next time one of those religious ladies tells you it was Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve punch her in her nose. Lay her flat. She walks hand in hand with the oppressor. Give her a good one for all of our people who have been burned at the stake, condemned by religious authorities, marked off for extinction, eaten alive by dogs and wild beasts, castrated, electric shocked, jailed, sent to concentration camps, beaten on city streets and killed on country roads. Yes, go ahead give her a good one. If the powers that be lie to us about how human existence began on the earth what other lies have they told us? 

If you don’t ask, We won’t tell. Redrawing in the late 20th century.

 In the spring of 1997 members of the Stonewall Congress (which was formed to educate our community and others about the issues facing us in the LGBT/Q community) found out that the Wadsworth Atheneum was going to present an exhibition titled, “Design, Dance, and Music of the Ballets Russes.” Our art department knew quite well from ourstories that the major and principle players of the ballet were gay and bisexual men. “Let’s take them on,” we said.  The impresario Sergei Diaghilev was the creator of the Ballets Russes is considered to be one of the leading figures of twentieth century modernism. His gay spirit, his love, and his creativity were all part of the driving force that helped to shape, define and advance modern art in the first part of the 20th century. One of the most famous male ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky was one of the impresario’s lovers. We can also count Leonide Massine, another dancer, Dima Filosofov who influenced the development of Diaghilev artistic ideas, Anton Dolin, Serge Lifar (whose collection formed the exhibition at the Wadsworth) and the composer Igor Markevich all principle players of the Ballet Russes and all Gay or Bisexual men.  All people that the Wadsworth was set to ignore with excuses of, “sexuality doesn’t matter in making a work of art,” “art education has to do with who your audience is and which stories to tell, we work with all age groups so each is different.” that old “don’t tell the kids about homos.” came reeking through.  Let’s entertain the idea that real education of the young would be to start to get them thinking that LGBT people are more than someone funny, more that someone to beat up, more then a person to call sissy, or faggot. And with a good education, we just might help any young person who is struggling with their sexuality to find someone that will make a difference in their lives. Something to stop them from destroying themselves. Something that might stop others from taunting our youth. I would think that the department of education at that time in the Wadsworth had it all wrong and upside down. I firmly believe that any education department who is not doing work along these lines is not meeting the standards of the way things should be in a world we are trying to build through education. In a world rich in hate and injustice, we believe that education on all matters is one key to unlock justice for all. Nothing is petty or insignificant in this educational process as some tried to tell us. 

We were and are aware that homophobia/transphobia comes in many forms and disguises and that one of these forms is denial, omission, and suppression of an artist’s sexuality if the artist is LGBT. It is assumed that our sexuality is irrelevant thus depriving us of our history, our lives and our stories. We sought to break the silence, the lies and omissions that the dominate culture was trying to use against us at this time and time after time. We knew that we had to reclaim our people and not allow straights to guide the conversation on their terms. On first approach to the museum we were shut down flat. The then director Peter Sutton wanted nothing to do with this discussion and told us so. Well that wasn’t to stop us, we really didn’t care who he thought he was, director or not. It was more or less stated to us, “How dare we, the uneducated take on the Wadsworth.”  The Stonewall Congress steering committee discussed this problem with community members and a letter was drafted to the Department of Education at the Wadsworth Atheneum. We quickly got our ducks in a row by contacting various University departments, theater, dance, visual arts, art organizations and other LGBT Groups. We had asked in our letter not only to reflect the truth about the lives of the people involved with the Ballet Russes through wall signage, (there was going to be no mention of any gay connection) but to also bring the noted Russian Gay Scholar Dr. Simon Karlinsky to Hartford to speak on the gay and bisexual connections and also on the ”gay spirit” in the making of the art. Of course we were met with, “there is no money to bring anyone to speak” ‘our programing is all set,”  but if you want to raise the money we will forfeit our fees for the use of the Aetna Theater and you can present Dr. Karlinsky’s lecture there.  Just what we expected, hit a very small group with not more than $1,000 in the bank with this. Sort of put up or shut up. It was like yeah, we know, but you will have to do the bailing if you think its so important.  Well little did they know how we queers operated. Donations came in, everything from a few dollars up to a few hundred. Dr. Karlinsky knew what we were up against and lowered his speaking fee. Real Art Ways came through with a hotel room, Singer travel helped with all travel arrangements, the departments of Dance, Theater, Music and the Dean’s Office at Trinity, the Art History, Cinema and Drama Department, Humanities Center of the School of Arts and Science at the University of Hartford, Real Art Ways, The Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, PRIDE Art Committee, Ct. Coalition for LGBT Civil Rights and countless individuals in the community all gave donations in support of our project.  Groups that believed as we do that this was a very important part of the Ballet Russes, an important part that would have been missing if our little band of Queers didn’t go up against the art world of Hartford. On Monday October 27, 1997 the Aetna Theater at the Wadsworth was packed with people. Dr. Karlinsky lecture, “Sergei Diaghilev, the Cultural Revival and the Gay Movement in Pre-Soviet Russia,” gave us the facts on these men’s lives and what it was like to be a LGBT person during this period in Russia. Even our adversaries were in the crowd those who thought our sexuality had nothing to do with the making of art. Some members of the staff told us that this lecture was one of the best they ever attended. We mixed contemporary queer politics, queerness, love, and art and tried and succeeded to educate the public about the rich contributions of our people. 

We did try to get the curator to change some of the wall labels through out the exhibition and to add some personal photo’s of the men together. One interesting label attached to the drawing, “The Afternoon of The Fawn” said, ” Nijinsky and Diaghilev had a intensely, emotional, personal relationship.” That is all! Sort of cuts short the 5 year relationship between these men which was a period when some of their greatest collaborations were made.  Dr. Simon Karlinisky in his essay “Serge Diaghilev: Public and Private,”explains it this way, “Nijinsky’s love relationship with Diaghilev exemplified the finest features of ancient great love between teacher and disciple. Diaghilev developed a promising little know dancer into the greatest male dancer the world has ever know. In looking back over Nijinsky’s oft described career one realizes that there would not have been a Nijinsky without his relationship with Diaghilev. None of the other sexual partners and lovers fared any better. Not a peep about Dolin, Markevich, or Massine’s life with Diaghilev. Nothing about the love and guidance that helped to form them artistically. Only Lifar fared a bit better with a touching photograph of him and Diaghilev, with the description of, “an intimate personal relationship.” Again we look to Karlinsky who summed up these great men by saying, “when we look at the life of Serge Diaghilev we see that his work is a testament to his loves, we see each period of great achievements in the arts as an expression of that love. What is not always remembered is that while he was helping to give the world all this great music, dance and visual art, he was also expressing his gay love for the men in his life.”  But all of this was lost as the curators felt the need to hide this important part of these men’s lives. They didn’t even begin to understand without that love, that gay love, the Ballet Russes would not have existed. Maybe they should have asked, we offered but they shut us down. Perhaps they should have invited Dr. Karlinsky or some other gay scholar to write the wall labels.  Certainly we know that this important job, this telling our stories should never be left up to straights who know nothing about our lives and our loves and what inspires our creativity. And because of this know nothingness they leave us out of the story.

Promises Broken by those in Power.

I guess they wanted their docents to appear to be stupid. One thing we had asked for and thought we were getting was all docents to be trained on the “Gay and Bisexual” aspect of the Ballet Russe. We had been promised this by the Education Department of the Wadsworth and by our negotiator a top professor in the Women Studies program at UH. Of course each week we sent in spies to the tours of the exhibition who would question the docents. We were told everything from Diaghilev was a pedophile, he only used the dancers for sex, claimed that all the artists were dead and then the ballet became famous, claimed that Nijinsky hated being Diaghilev lover and only did it for fame, claimed that in docent training nothing was ever mentioned about the sexuality of these men, one of the docents who is a friend of the community studied everything she could get her hands on and read all of Karlinsky’s essays. She tried to train the others as she said that “most of them were letting their imaginations run wild on the topic.” We had offered to do training classes with the docents and members of the LGBT community to at least help them feel comfortable but were never taken up on the offer. That old you unwashed masses, we educated classes came out in full force.

Our forces around town helped us out.

Kathy O’ Connell who wrote for the Hartford Advocate at the time put it right out there, up front and center in an article titled, “Dancing Around the Issues” A new exhibit raises questions about homophobia at the Atheneum.” Kathy caused quite a stir with her article. One important point and without any prodding from us Kathy brought up when addressing the idea of great creative talents working together, said ”A very large part of that creativity, however comes from exactly the same sort of passions that have fueled the inspiration of all artists, whatever their sexual orientation, since the beginning of time. In exhibitions of Pablo Picasso’s work,for example, the presence of his wife and five mistresses in his life and work is almost always part of the fabric of the show.” In this exhibition the gayness of Diaghilev and others is an issue only addressed in the Atheneum catalogue. Got $$ find out the truth, (or somewhat as long as you can dance around and read between the lines).  One would deliberately have to seek out this information. Without prodding this part of art history would be omitted. We were confident to say that if the partners of Diaghilev were women that the wall text and other aspects of the exhibition would have reflected this. The curator would have found it significant to include the many partners and mistresses that the great impresario had.

The Metroline came to our rescue also. On the front cover was a picture of the Wadsworth with the words, “When Do Art and Sexuality Mix?”The answer: They don’t as far as the Atheneum is concerned if it isn’t heterosexual. That is of course unless someone forces the issue. In that issue of the Metroline a call went out for donations and the money came in. Our community knew that ball was in our court and we better start kicking it back fast. And as you have read we kicked a good ball.

Two Years Later Showing Their True Colors.

Remember they told us that sexuality doesn’t matter in the creation of art. They tried to play us for stupid. We had a good laugh when an exhibition on the art of Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O’Keeffe opened at the Wadsworth. How they showed their true colors when pronouncing in wall labels the many straight lovers that Stieglitz and O’Keeffe took on. This even went so far as to state that, “Stieglitz lusted after his young niece.” This is exactly what we said, “if the ballet had been about straights you would have even told us things that we might not care to hear,” but even though would have given us a larger picture of those who make art.

Our People hold more Keys.

I will follow up this essay with other postings of our people going up against those who wish us to be erased and those who wish to deny our great contributions to this world. We as a people must always remember that we stood there when the first morning broke, when the light of the sun shone upon the face of the earth regardless of what anyone tells us. We have been the Gods and the Goddesses, the shaman, high priest and high priestess, the herbalist, the healer, the doctors, the great artists, the poets, dancers, musicians, painters. We have lead the armies in great battles and we have lead the movements for peace, fighting against injustice, liberating ourselves and others. We are a people of the world, we come from everywhere. Name a place we don’t. Every nook and cranny calls out our name. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer. We truly are everywhere and without out us through out all times, this world would would be only clouds, a very dull grey place. Our archives, our historians and writers fill in the history of the world with our stories. We take our rightful place, out and proud, standing tall amongst those who have denied us. An old song sang, “Just where do you think you would be if it weren’t for folks like me.” Let’s sing it again and again. 

Sources:

1. Metroline Vol.24 #9, 4 September 1997. Cover, “When Do Art and Sexuality Mix?” Don’t Ask Don’ Tell, by Todd Coopee. Pages 19-21

2. The Hartford Advocate, October 23, 1997, “Dancing Around The Issues,” by Kathy O’Connell. Page 19.

3.”Russia’s Gay Literature and Culture: The Impact of The October Revolution,” Simon Karlinsky published in “Hidden From History, Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past.” New American Library, edited by Martin Duberman, Martha Vicinus, George Chauncey Jr.

4. “Serge Diaghilev: Public and Private,” Simon Karlinsky, Christopher Street Reader, NY, March 1980.

5. “The Hidden Ones”: Christianity’s First Closet Case: A study in the Application of Gay Consciousness.” pgs. 217-237 Harry Hay. “Radically Gay” Gay Liberation in the words of its Founder.” Edited by Will Roscoe, Beacon Press, Boston. (I am seeking permission to publish this essay on QWB.)

6. “Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis,” Robert Graves and Raphael Patai, Garden City New York: Doubleday 1964.

note: Dr. Karlinsky’s remarks and my opening remarks were recorded by Keith Brown of Gay Spirit Radio. This will be the first of essays dealing with redrawing. Once I get down to my box in the archives at CCSU I will be able to write more on the other times we went up against those, outside and inside our community who tried to direct the erasing of our people.