2025 ESTROGENIUS: Portia Wells

The Estrogenius Festival is an annual celebration of women, trans, and gender non-conforming artists.
With 40+ performances, the culmination of such a series is always something special. This year, the
festival closed on the presentation of Portia Wells’ When The Muzzle Comes Off, Who Do You
Bite First?

Curator Melissa Ricker started off by setting the tone, describing the power of a festival that shows up to honor and empower voices overlooked. Aside from a DJ board with flickering lights against the back wall, Portia took the space, headed to the blinking display and put on headphones.

They built a live techno beat, nodding their head along as toes tapped in the audience. Then, shifting, Portia left the board and began floorwork. Movement melted between concert dance and club culture: the body was thrown, gently articulated, recovered, equally soft and sharp. The rhythm included barking, and images of aggressive dogs flashed across two monitors. Portia barks and snarls in the space, and the dance continues. Slipping between house and contemporary, comfort and unease.

Portia snares the mic at the end of the stage. Through a distorted echoing setting, they introduce themselves, playfully. The words land eloquently, interweaving the topic of gender ambiguity and transition, challenging the audience to reflect.

Changing into briefs and sneakers, scenes of hyper-masculine bodies, body-builders, and weightlifting
men cross the televisions. Portia engages in a sequence of movement accompanied by the occasional
“flex”. This puts the body in the space in conversation with the bodies on the screens. Deep red text flashes across the screens: statements, questions, thoughts. Some nearly unreadable, fleeting, and yet their emotional weight interrupted the flow, amplifying the piece’s message. In another shift, Portia re-entered as a bedazzled Rhinestone Cowboy, moving with camp and charm. The juxtaposition between rage and whimsy, dysphoria and euphoria, made the experience feel expansive and intimate.

Portia grabbed the mic again, making a confession, adding rhythms as they spoke until they looped
themselves in three iterations, repeating the phrase “where I’m still alive.” These three Portias together,
proclaimed life, and took the piece to its end. Earlier movement motifs cycled through, taking Portia toward
the audience, past them, and out the door, the audio and lights dimming with their departure.

A standing ovation was accompanied by tears and roaring applause. Portia explained “the work traces the
shifting gaze placed upon a transitioning body.” The audience bore witness to the effects of that gaze,
articulated effortlessly by a piece of enduring multidisciplinary art. Movement, sound, and image made
way for a complex truth.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY — Emma Morris