We've Been Here: A Meditation on Italian Folk Queerness

For many LGBTQ+ people, we are led to believe that our history began with the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969. In fact, people of various genders and sexual orientations have existed forever all around the world. As a queer and trans Italian American, Summer Minerva retraced her queerness and her Italianness back to her grandmother’s southern Italian land, where she discovered the presence of a 3rd gender figure known as a femminiello, that has been a revered part of the folk culture for thousands of years.

This performance, centred on the themes of identity and belonging, will contain Summer’s rich, heartfelt storytelling, southern Italian folk dance, and the invitation to reflect on such themes as cultural loss and assimilation, family legacy, and gender identity, centring on the question, “Where do we belong?” Through the performance, audience members will be asked to ponder what these identities mean, and how we can find home in one’s own body and on the lands that our ancestors immigrated to.

Discussion
Summer Minerva is an Italian American queer, trans filmmaker, author, dancer, and researcher based in the US and Napoli. Their award-winning documentary, Summer Within (2023), is currently doing the festival circuit and their co-edited book Italian Trans Geographies was released in October 2023.

With the support of Australian GLBTIQ Multicultural Council and Australasian Centre for Italian Studies, as part of the ACIS 2024 Biennial Conference.

Wellspring: Enquiry and Exchange Bringing campus to the community, Wellspring is an exciting series of immersive events that explores new depths of cultural enquiry and exchange. A collaboration between The Street Theatre and the ANU School of Literature, Languages and Linguistics, Wellspring invites Canberra’s curious to experience the inexhaustible source of human creativity and communication. Get ready for big bold ideas inviting curiosity and conversation.