Little bathhouse on the prairie

I was born twice in my life. Once as a child, to the conservative corn fields of Iowa, and again as a prideful queer, gay man under the vibrant pulse of the Chicago skyline. A city whose queer culture emulates historical lineage and the powerful joy of healing through the community that I am now a part of. That culture taught me that sharing, creating, and demanding queer stories gives us a glimpse of queer spirit, which can liberate us from the constraints of the heteronormative temporality of the now. My introduction to the queer culture of Chicago was not on the shelves of a historically rich library or at a museum of highly sought-after art collections. My entryway into Chicago queer history was by practice of embodied exploration in spaces where the male-on-male touch is the highly sought-after collection. The bathhouses and cruising locations of Chicago would become spaces of joy and healing for me through their ability to allow me to reclaim a true queer identity over the manufactured one that a conservative and religious state had told me to conform to.

This thesis seeks to deepen the understanding of the relationship between dance and theatre, proposing that their integration creates a more potent and cohesive medium for queer storytelling. By examining their interconnectedness, this research highlights the unique power of combining these art forms to amplify and celebrate queer narratives. Building on my interdisciplinary experience in choreography and devising, I aim to center the body within the bathhouse experience, exploring its role as a vessel of memory, sensuality, and identity. Through a choreographic and devised method of creation, I seek to translate these embodied experiences into storytelling, revealing how physicality can drive narrative and deepen connection between the role of the performer and the audience.

Through an autobiographical storytelling structure supported by an ensemble cast, this thesis explores the pursuit of radical queer joy. At its heart, this creative research underscores the transformative power of sharing queer stories—rituals that open possibilities for others to experience belonging and imagine a utopian future. By retelling my journey—from the prairies of Iowa to the bathhouses of Chicago as a queer, gay man, I seek to reimagine my relationship to space: physical, metaphorical, emotional, and imaginative. This work asks whether queer utopia can be enacted through performance, using theatrics to reclaim and celebrate identity.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.25820/etkp-6189