Kiki Rivera (she, they, we, wrasse) is an internationally produced, award-winning theatre artist, educator, and arts activist with her BA in Theatre and MFA in Playwriting from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM). Original plays include Puzzy (featuring award-winning New Zealand Playwright Victor Rodger), and Faʻalavelave: The Interruption. Their work focuses on cultural and sexual identity and the effects of colonization. Kiki is one of many voices for Pacific Islanders in the diaspora and is published in Samoan Queer Lives edited by Yuki Kihara and Dan Talaupapa McMullin and believes in self-reflective storytelling from a contemporary indigenous perspective and creating space for marginalized theatre artists of color.

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SHOW NOTES

• Where are you calling from?
• What project has your attention right now?
  • TeAda Productions
  • HowlRound Theatre Commons
  • To Our Black & Brown Babies of Ocean and Islands (Short scene)
  • Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum 
• Was your lifestyle growing up similar to your lifestyle now?
  • University of Hawai’i
• Did you have a back upplan?
• Did you have a survival job?
• What has been the biggest risk you’ve had to take?
• What are some big rewards that you’ve received that your younger self would find unbelievable?
  • Indigenous Theatre Company –Moogahlin Performing Arts
  • Aboriginal Theatres 
  • Chantal Bilodeau
  • Climate Change Theatre Action
• Who have you admired along the way? See it to be it.
  • Victor Rodger
• Have you “made it”?
• What advice would you give to listeners wanting to follow in your footsteps?
• Do you have any artistic recommendations for listeners?
  • The Kasha of Kaimuki by Hannah Ii- Epstein, Dir. by Anna Ii-Epstein
  • Nothing Without a Company
  • Kiki Rivera on HowlRound
  • Kumu Kahua Theatre
  • Moses Goods – Lovey Lee

@xcelsior_56


Kiki’s Website

KEY QUOTES

• The theatre was a place that I ran to…it was my refuge. It became my family and became my world.
• I stopped theatre for a long time…I didn’t want my theatre work to be entertainment. I wanted it to be more. I just focused on my community work.
• I feel like I’m always looking for the pivot, because life is constantly changing and I’m not the kind of person to stay in one place for very long.
• Navigating what living as an artist means has been the biggest risk.
• Never would I have imagined that there is a sea out there of working artists.
• Speak your truth.
• Stories will save the world.
• The first thing to do wherever you are is get to know the peoples and get to know what their struggles are.

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DYBP graphic design  © 2020 by

Laura Gernon

DYBP theme song, “Ditch” © 2020 by Dean Keith