SILLY WON’T KILL YOU
LAUGHING , LOVING and LIVING with HIV
Featuring Mikiki and Massimo Agostinelli
Sunday, Nov 9 | 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Arts Court Theatre
Director:
Nathanaëlle Vincent
Producer:
Angie-Pepper O'Bomsawin
Studio: INIS Productions
Country: Canada
Le Ridicule Ne Tue Pas (Silly Won’t Kill You) (2017)
Massimo Agostinelli has a funny calling. Backstage at Cirque du Soleil, the master clown teaches the art of the ridiculous and the socially unacceptable. He confides in us how he, an introverted dancer, became the conductor of a farcical orchestra, and quite in spite of himself.
This short is in French with English subtitles.
Raha (2024)
Directors: Rojin Shafiei & Raha
Country: Ecuador
Fighting loneliness in Quito, this queer HIV+ Iranian refugee throw a birthday orgy for 33 guests.
Escorpionikas
Directors: Matheus Mello, Bruna Kury, Nisha Platzer
Country: Brazil
A revolutionary trans HIV+ sex worker manifesto.
Massimo Agostinelli
With almost 50 years of artistic experience, Massimo Agostinelli has become a renowned international teacher of bouffon theatre, as well as a choreographer and artist of contemporary dance for prestigious dance and theatre schools across Canada. He has been a trainer and coach for Cirque du Soleil since 2004. Massimo is also a guest speaker and workshop facilitator at esteemed worldwide conferences focusing on creativity and innovation. Today, at the age of 65, Massimo remains committed to sharing his unique approach and expertise with artists and non-artists alike.
Mikiki is a performance and video artist and queer community health activist of Acadian/Mi’kmaq and Irish descent from Black Duck Siding, Ktaqmkuk/Newfoundland, Canada. They attended NSCAD and Concordia before returning to St. John's to work as Programming Coordinator at Eastern Edge Gallery and later to Mohkinstsis/Calgary to work as the Director of TRUCK Gallery.
Their work has been presented throughout Canada and internationally in self-produced interventions, artist-run centres, performance art festivals and public galleries.
Their identity as an artist is informed and intrinsically linked to their history as a sexual health educator, harm reduction worker and activist. Mikiki’s creative themes often address safety and responsibility, disclosure and self-determination, community building and reckoning with trauma and loss.
Mikiki has worked variously as Sexuality Educator in Mohkinstsis/Calgary's public schools, Bathhouse Attendant in Sâskwatôn/Saskatoon, & Drag Queen Karaoke Hostess in St. John's. Mikiki has worked in numerous capacities in the gay men's health and HIV response both nationally/internationally and as well in Odawa/Ottawa, Tiohtià:ke/Montreal and Tkaronto/Toronto, working in harm reduction, bathhouse/street outreach and HIV testing.
In 2023 Mikiki produced One Brief History of Drag; a quarter century retrospective of their drag performance art at The Rooms Provincial Gallery realized with a dozen of their best and most adored comrades.
During that same St. John’s week in 2023 , Mikiki and ChromaQueer’s Festival Co-Director Glenn Nuotio reunited onstage, after almost two musical decades of grief and girth, to perform once again as SHISS, Newfoundland’s infamous queer piano barfly never famous bratty cabaret duo. SHISS still remain “criminally-unrecorded”, as coined by Jordan Arsenault, who also in 2023 joined SHISS in St. John’s, becoming their official cellist and inevitably soon, a former band member.
Mikiki is irregularly found hosting their Golden Girls screening and queer cultural studies lecture series Rose Beef and is currently working on producing an upcoming major solo exhibition and biennial performance festival