TrannyCast, a series dedicated to tuck together different people of trans experience talking about life, struggle, resilience and empowerment.
Mavi Veloso is a Brazilian artist based in Amsterdam. Transdisciplinary by essence, she works integrating performance, visual art, dance, theater and music. In her creative process Mavi explores performativity, the relationship between artist and audience, trans feminism, decolonization, gender politics, sexual anxiety, survival, resistance, resilience and empowerment. As a Latin American woman of trans experience, she incorporates her gender transition process and appropriates conflicts about migration and cultural adaptation to talk about the physical experience of trans, queer, femme and non-binary bodies. Mavi has released songs with Hystereofônica, Tropical Twista Records and Anunak and her work has been presented in venues and festivals including Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin, van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Kunstenfestivaldesarts at Kanal Centre Pompidou Brussels, Les Urbaines in Lausanne, the 31st Biennial of São Paulo and Centro Cultural São Paulo.
Stay in tuned with Mavi's work, by following her website and social media pages:
Episode 1, with Perlla Rannielly
Episode 2, with Ana Paula Amstel
A conversation:
Fabian: How is it now in corona for you? Is it challenging?
Mavi: At the moment I am not traveling, not working. I have things canceled that were supposed to happen in April as well as in May, June and July. So this is a scary thing in a way, but on the other hand, I've already learned to spend a lot of time at home concentrating and preparing things, editing material or creating new stuff. It is already somehow a routine for me as an artist, when I'm not traveling, when I'm not performing in places, when I'm not rehearsing in the studio, I already spent a lot of time indoors inside my own processes. Creating music is a new thing for me and I am learning a lot by researching things online and creating stuff. So this didn't change a lot.
Fabian: So are there any challenges or not really?
Mavi: In corona? I'm finding everything nice. [laughs] No, I mean, I'm pretty good. There are people calling to go out and joking: ‘Hey, Mavi, forget you're the only person doing quarantine’. I say ‘noooo, I'm going to stay in quarantine. I prefer staying home.’ I think the damage is in the work stuff. To go to places and have contact with people, is something that I need and it’s part of my work. I think definitely we will feel the effects of this later a lot.
Fabian: Yeah is it now more difficult to make money?
Mavi: It is. I'm not making money at all. Here in the Netherlands, there is support which I applied for and I'm waiting to see if they will give it to me or not. But if they don't, I'm really fucked. I'm using all my economies. As I am my own manager, I always prepare. I do gigs and save money to use along the time. And if nothing happens in 2020…
Fabian: Can you imagine performing again for full clubs with physical distancing?
Mavi: I don't think it's going to happen very soon. I'm really not thinking of it. Because I'm trying not to panic. I see many people, many artist friends doing a lot of these video performances online, like things on Instagram or YouTube. I didn't do that yet.
Fabian: How do you feel about those online performances?
Mavi: I watch like one second and then stop. There were one or two people that made something interesting but somehow, I couldn't. I don't know if it's me, but I don't have patience to watch many things online. Maybe if it's like a film or a video work, but if it's a person singing there? Maybe it's also because the quality of sound in such situations tends to be more precarious. Maybe if we figure out how to do this in the future. These are questions that I have. Because I wouldn't like to just play a base here and have a terrible quality of microphones to offer as a work. This is what I miss. At the same time, it's very nice that people are trying. It's also a way, as an artist, to not go crazy. To continue connecting with our audiences and to do things even if it’s very raw. I admire people who are doing it. But I didn't manage to do it yet. And I'm really thinking about it and trying to be creative. We have to be inventive and reinvent ourselves, right, our artistic practice now is really concentrating on the internet and I’m trying to figure out how I can deal with this.
