The Unfashionability of AIDS with David Román Doing research in the early 1990s for "Acts of Intervention," my book on AIDS and performance, I uncovered a diverse range of nearly-forgotten, activist artworks from the early 1980s. I researched cabaret shows, revues, dance events, and theatrical performances staged not only in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, but also in Atlanta, Chicago, and Provincetown. A record of this work almost disappeared for a variety of reasons: because the artists and audiences for it were ill and dying; because of its appearance in often-the-beaten-track venue;, and because it was never documented within "official culture." A few examples: Jeff Hagedorn, whose monologue "One" was performed in Chicago gay bars in 1983; James Howell, a dancer and choreographer from San Francisco, who died a few months after premiering what was probably the first dance about AIDS in 1982; and Rebecca Ranson, a lesbian playwright from Atlanta, who wrote one of the first AIDS plays in 1984, well over a year before Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" and William Hoffman's "As Is" hit the New York stage. These were mainly community-based art projects--art by, for, and about a specific community. They were designed to educate community members about HIV/AIDS, memorialize lost friends and lovers, and to raise awareness about the realities of HIV/AIDS within their immediate locales. Community-based AIDS projects remain one of the most viable means of responding to the changing landscape of HIV/AIDS. It is a nearly two-decades-old tradition. Not only is AIDS "not over", community-based art projects about AIDS are "not over," either, and it would be a mistake to imagine that AIDS is no longer addressed through the arts. What has changed in the past few years is the diminishing amount of attention directed towards art about AIDS--by both homo and hetero audiences and critics. Once again, most current AIDS work that I know of is addressed to a local context and audience. Obviously, there are exceptions, especially among gay male artists, such as Michael Kearns, Neil Greenberg, Ron Athey, and Bill T. Jones. These justifiably celebrated artists have each secured a national reputation for their artistic visions and are outspoken veterans of the AIDS arts movement, as well as long term survivors. Their creative work continues to shape our understanding of what it means to live with HIV in the United States today. But there is also a new generation of artists/activists, who have been inspired by a legacy of AIDS-related arts activism. One of the most interesting performances I've seen recently is Tony Valenzuela's "The (Bad) Boy Next Door". (Michael Kearns, one of the first artists to produce AIDS theater in Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, and the cofounder of Artists Against AIDS with Jim Pickett in 1986, urged Tony to create this performance after reading about him in a POZ magazine cover story last year.) The piece is a young Latino gay man's coming of age story, with a twist or two. It is extremely controversial---how can a performance about a young HIV-positive gay man's candid account of barebacking, pornography, and prostitution, be anything but? Valenzuela, however, frames his performance within a larger history of gay men's sexual and political culture. The piece itself is a fairly traditional, narrative-driven monologue. Tony's on stage for 75 minutes or so telling his story with minimal staging, lights, or props. "The (Bad) Boy Next Door", like the best of queer performance, brings to light queer culture's darker and more disturbing worlds. Tony's work not only reminds us that AIDS still matters, it also reminds us that performance remains one of our most potent means to think though the challenges of contemporary queer life. Whether or not we agree with all of his life choices, "The (Bad) Boy Next Door" nonetheless provokes us into important and timely discussions of sex, politics, and community. With "The (Bad) Boy Next Door", Tony Valenzuela, who is thirty-two, helps revive AIDS performance for a new generation. It will be interesting to track the range of audience responses as he begins to perform this piece throughout the country. I attended another, very different kind of performance last December 1 at the California African American Museum in the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles. This is the neighborhood where I work and also the congressional district of Representative Maxine Waters, one of the leading figures of the Black Congressional Caucus, who's successfully lobbied the Clinton administration for increased funding of HIV education and treatment for African-Americans and Latinos. Music and performance were at the heart of this community event, which included an address on AIDS in the Black community by Waters, an informational report on AIDS in Subsaharan Africa, and a candlelight vigil. Additionally, SADA, a vocal ensemble of five African-American women, sang. SADA stands for "Sisters Against Alcohol and Drug Abuse" and in between original, traditional, and contemporary songs, each vocalist testified to her own efforts to overcome addiction and to survive HIV. SADA performs almost exclusively in Black churches, community forums, and prisons. The group has no record deals, no publicity agents, and no critical reviews to call attention to the important work that they do to fight AIDS in their communities. This AIDS-art is historically linked to the grassroots artistic interventions of the early 1980s. When I taught a course on "AIDS and the Arts in America" last fall, I was surprised by two things: first, that my students, despite the "end of AIDS" pronouncements in the media, see HIV/AIDS as something significantly impacting their own lives. It was fascinating to hear how this group of 18-or-19-year-old students, born when AIDS was first discovered, wanted to talk about HIV/AIDS and its relevance to them. The second thing that I found surprising was that most of these students also wanted to know about early AIDS art and activism. Many of them, in fact, were angered that they weren't enlightened about this history earlier. Why, they questioned, was AIDS only introduced in their sex and health education courses and not in their social studies, literature, or history courses in high school? How, they asked, could the popular press have failed to report about HIV--let alone the arts about it--for so long? These students---and others I have taught throughout my career--were eager to learn more about the history of AIDS, including the history of the AIDS-arts in varied communities. For my students and for some of the artists discussed above, the "unfashionability of AIDS" is something they consciously set out to resist. There is, in fact, a new generation of students, artists, and activists who are forging both intra-generational and inter-generational discussions about HIV/AIDS. The challenge is for those of us who've been around for awhile to rise to the occasion and join in, perhaps even nurture, this dialogue. Rather than wanting a younger generation to simply bear witness to our own AIDS experiences, it seems to me that we might want to listen to what these younger people might have to say about living during a time of "AIDS unfashionability". I've also been tremendously moved and impressed by the dedication of a new generation of artists who speak out about HIV/AIDS to young people of various backgrounds. It is unfortunate that an older generation of progressive queer activists have been so dismissive of "Rent", Jonathan Larson's 1996 musical which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. In their anti-"Rent" rants, these older activists have failed to recognize, and thus fail to honor, the off-stage work of many of the talented performers of the various "Rent" casts who use their celebrity among young people to speak out about HIV/AIDS. Two of these performers, Wilson Cruz and Anthony Rapp, who also have notable careers in film and television as well as in the theater, are among the most eloquent and pointed AIDS-awareness voices of their generation. For these artists as well as some others from "Rent," this off-stage work is an extension of their on-stage performance, a merging of art and activism that is for them at the very heart of their experience of "Rent." The performers I've mentioned here are only some of the people who continue to use the arts to respond to the challenges of HIV/AIDS. Whether they belong to an older generation of gay male artists living with HIV; or whether they are women of color who, after years of living in silence and abuse, are beginning to find their voice through the arts; or whether they are young men and women building on a legacy of AIDS art and activism; I'm convinced people will continue to carry on the vital work begun in the early 1980s. David Román is the author of "Acts of Intervention: Performance, Gay Culture, & AIDS," which received the 1999 Outstanding Book Award from the Association of Theatre in Higher Education, and coeditor with Holly Hughes of "O Solo Homo: The New Queer Performance," which received the 1999 Lambda Award for Drama. His essay, "Not-About-AIDS" appears in the current issue (6:1, Spring 2000) of "GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies". He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at the University of Southern California. The symposium "panelists'" - David Román, Steed Taylor, Barbara Hunt and Thomas Sokolowski