October 31, 2001
Contact:
Sarah Ray
802-443-5794
sray@middlebury.edu
Posted: October 31, 2001
MIDDLEBURY,
VT - Internationally-acclaimed performance artist Tim
Miller will perform his latest work, “Glory Box,” on Sunday,
Nov. 11, at 7 p.m. in the Middlebury College McCullough
Student Center on Old Chapel Road off Route 30. The show is
free, and no advance reservations are necessary.
In
a series of comic and provocative episodes, Miller details
his struggle to keep his Australian lover in the United
States and explores the challenges of love, marriage and
immigration rights for gay people. The Village Voice hailed
Miller for his “gift for letting one topic open surprising
doors onto a multitude of others; his works are as canny and
complex as they are charming.”
Although
the performance centers on the particular issue of gay
immigration rights, it leads the audience into an
examination of the human heart. In “Glory Box,” named for
the Australian term for “hope chest,” Miller conjures an
alternative repository for the memories, loves, hopes and
dreams of gay people.
Since
gay couples in America are denied the immigration rights
routinely given to heterosexual married couples, Miller has
some notable dramas to recount in his story. From his
hilarious grade school playground battles over wanting to
marry another boy to the bittersweet challenges of adult
relationships, “Glory Box” culminates with Miller’s
harrowing experience of having his partner torn from him at
an international airport.
“Unless
America grows up quick and changes these bigoted unfair
laws, in order to maintain our relationship, Alistair and I
will probably be forced to leave the U.S. and seek political
refuge in a civilized country like Canada, Australia or
England, where they have immigration rights for bi-national
gay couples,” said Miller.
Hailed
for its humor and passion, Miller’s solo theater serves as
an artistic, spiritual and political expression of his
identity as a gay man. His past work includes “My Queer
Body” (1992), “Naked Breath” (1994), “Fruit Cocktail”
(1996), and “Shirts & Skin” (1998), which is based on
his book published by Alyson Press. Miller’s performances
have been presented throughout North America, Australia and
Europe at such venues as the Yale Repertory
Theater,
London’s
Institute of Contemporary Art, the Walker Art Center in
Minneapolis and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
In
1990, Miller was awarded a Solo Performer Fellowship from
the National Endowment for the Arts, but his grant was
overturned. Miller and three other solo artists whose grants
were also overturned on the basis of content became known as
the NEA Four, and with help from the American Civil
Liberties Union, successfully sued the federal government
for violation of their First Amendment rights. They won a
settlement in which the government paid them the amount of
their rescinded grants as well as all court costs. Though
the Supreme Court overturned part of Miller’s case in 1998,
determining that “standards of decency” are constitutional
criterion for federal funding of the arts, Miller has vowed
“to continue fighting for freedom of expression for voices
of diversity.”
Miller
is co-founder of two performance spaces: Performance Space
(P.S.) 122 on Manhattan’s Lower East Side and Highways
Performance Space in Santa Monica, Calif.
This
performance is presented by GLEAM (Gay and Lesbian Employees
at Middlebury), the Middlebury office of institutional
diversity, and the women’s and gender studies program. For
more information, contact Jennifer Ponder of the Middlebury
College dance department at 802-443-5822.