Octavio Campos Tackles Same-Sex Domestic Violence in Please Don't Hate Me!

For Octavio Campos, life not only imitates art, but art is a call to action. Campos is a preeminent Miami personality - as a performance artist, dancer, choreographer, activist, and provocateur. This weekend, at the Miami Made festival presented by the Arsht Center Incubator in collaboration with the Miami Light Project Here & Now Festival, Campos invites the audience to test out their "actionist" muscle.

In his piece "No Music in This House," which is a work in progress and the latest installment of his larger work, Please Don't Hate Me!, issues of intolerance will be addressed and the audience will be transformed into agents of social change.

Please Don't Hate Me! is in partnership with the Switchboard of Miami,

Miami's 24-hour information, referral, and social crisis helpline (dial

211). Tolerance and hope were at the core of Campos's inspiration for

this collection of "cultural interventions, social experiments, and

performances."

"I was just tired of being called a faggot on Miami Beach, still to this

day," Campos says about the impetus for the work, "and all the recent

suicides by teens." He offers a timely and important message in this

piece. "Being different can be a good thing, but it doesn't always feel

good. Who do you call when you need help? Who can you trust?"

Writer, pianist, and performance artist Bill Spring will join Campos

onstage and tackle the confounding issue of same-sex domestic violence.

The audience will be pushed and challenged to navigate the "seemingly

simple question -- what would I do?"

Campos is no stranger to challenging audiences. He is the founding artistic director of Camposition, an

iconoclastic arts organization that pushes the boundaries of

contemporary performance and "actionism." He studied dance and

composition at the State University of New York at Purchase and the

Folkwang Tanzstudio of Pina Bausch in Germany.

He has collaborated with

countless dance, theater, and music luminaries, including Robert Wilson,

Martha Graham, Birgitta Trommler, Philip Glass, Jorge Guerra, Vivienne

Newport, and currently with rising star Rosie Herrera. He has taught

master classes and workshops worldwide, most especially at the New World

School of the Arts.

Camposition's works and programs have been

supported by the Miami-Dade Cultural Affairs Council, the National

Performance Network, Creative Capital, the Kennedy Center, and National

Endowment for the Arts.

Please Don't Hate Me! takes the stage at 10:15 p.m. on Saturday on the

seating to all events; arshtcenter.org.

--Tiffany Hanan Madera of artburstmiami.com