Wesleigh Gates
artist & scholar based in Los Angeles
about wesleigh
Wesleigh Gates (she/they) is an artist & academic working across disciplines to foster connection, collectivity, and care. Her performance work as a director and collaborator has been seen in New York, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, and Prague, and has been supported by the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Frank-Ratchye Fund for Art at the Frontier.
Her research sits at the intersection of performance studies, trans studies, and critical geography, focusing on the interventions of trans performance practices in public/urban space. She has been published in PARtake: The Journal of Performance as Research, Gulf Coast Journal, Contemporary Performance, and Media-N (forthcoming), and she was writer-in-residence at the 2019 zürich moves! festival.
Wesleigh is a member of Stop LAPD Spying Coalition's Academic Complicity Working Group, and trains with Trans Boxing LA. She holds an MFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University and is currently pursuing a PhD in Culture and Performance at UCLA.
CONTACT:
wesleigh.gates [at] gmail.com
wesleigh [at] ucla.edu
selected performance work
COLLABORATIONS
Brendan Drake, choreographer
performer, GHOST PORN, UCLA 2023
Julie Tolentino, choreographer
performer, love come quick, home/la 2022
coveillance, critical technology collective
co-creator, surveillance walking tour, pittsburgh 2021
Ella-Gabriel Mason, choreographer
performer, CANAL, philadelphia 2020
Jamison Edgar, visual artist
co-creator, nearest neighbors, kelly strayhorn theater 2019
Aaron Landgraf & Adam J. Thompson, designers
co-creator, untitled #1, mit hacking arts festival 2017
Big Art Group, contemporary performance
performer, opacity, bard live arts biennial 2017
Dan Safer/Witness Relocation, choreographer
performer, daily life everlasting, la mama 2015
DIRECTING
*denotes original work
A/B Machines (adapted from text by Andy Warhol)*
fringearts philadelphia 2020; carnegie mellon university 2018
TERMINER (adapted from archival text on Salem MA)*
new hazlett theater 2020
Alkestis (Euripides, trans. Anne Carson)
carnegie mellon university 2018
Intimatics I-III (Kate Dakota Kremer)
SFX FESTIVAL 2018; dixon place 2017
Lulu is Hungry (Keech Kiechel)
ARS NOVA 2016
The Tower (Adam Scott Mazer)
here arts 2015; standard toykraft 2014
writing
MEDIA-N (FORTHCOMING)
Trans/Locatability: Gender Positioning Systems and Locative Performance
PARTAKE: THE JOURNAL OF PERFORMANCE AS RESEARCH
Dairy Free Dance: Digestion and Resistance at zürich moves 2019
CONTEMPORARY PERFORMANCE
archive of critical writing on dance & performance, 2017-2019