Ivy Monteiro
Queer ballroom activist
Swiss Performing Arts Award 2024
Ivy Monteiro was born in São Paulo (Brazil) in 1987 and lives in Zurich, where they were awarded a Bachelor’s degree in visual arts specialising in performance and multimedia by the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK). They are a queer artist who creates stage performances, video, parties and ballroom events with an international reach. They teach voguing and are an activist, known as Mother Tropikahl Ivy Laveaux (Ex-Poderosa), and a co-founder of the Swiss ballroom and voguing scene. Their works are shown in galleries, theatres and museums, including Counterpulse (San Francisco) and the Museum of Image and Sound (São Paulo), as well as at festivals such as the Queer Biennial II (Los Angeles), Les Urbaines (Lausanne), the Eco Futures Festival (London) and the Zürcher Theater Spektakel (2021) and the opening ceremony of the Swiss pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019. Ivy Monteiro also founded the Trans Safety Emergency Fund (TSEF), which provides financial support to transgender people in need.
Ivy Monteiro uses elements of dance, performance and music to develop fluid, figurative and queer-futurist forms that touch on subjects like femininity and gender. They also reinterpret supposed ancestors and spirituality. Monteiro and Wellington Gadelha, a choreographer and performer from their home region in Brazil, investigate how they can communicate with each other using voguing and dances from the Afro-diaspora in north-east Brazil in Mira (2024) at the Tanzhaus Zürich. The result is a powerful piece in which symbolism intermingles with ritual movement patterns. They belong to the Tanzhaus Zürich’s team of Kompliz:innen (“Accomplices”), not only receiving production and research support, but also actively helping to create the programme. Las Templas, an event in sound, visuals and choreography, was shown in Geneva in 2021 as part of Emergentia at the Théâtre de l’Usine. Ivy Monteiro also produces events of their own with a focus on a QTIBIPOC (queer, trans & intersex, black, indigenous, people of colour) audience.
Ivy Monteiro is no architect, but they are constantly building bridges and creating spaces. They build bridges, for instance, between contemporary dance, video art and ballroom culture. They share expertise and experience and link knowledge and perspectives on the African diaspora with future artistic creation. They create safe spaces for their community and enable exchange between society at large and those who are queer, trans & intersex, black, indigenous and people of colour. Activism is a common thread in all their artistic endeavours, and they are constantly working. Their resistance is celebratory, open and loving, radiating the beauty of their courage and unfaltering patience.
Johanna Hilari, Jury member
