Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Vargas.
Hi Steven, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas where I attended a STEM high school. Growing up in the Conservative South resulted in a lot of self-hatred, especially as a queer person of color. I worked hard to get accepted to a college outside of the state. I always had an artistic mindset, but my teachers and college counselors told me I’d be wasting my life pursuing things like writing and the arts. They told me this in private and sometimes in front of the entire class. There were few teachers that supported my artistic endeavors, and with that support I applied to five schools out of state and got into three: NYU for acting; School of the Art Institute of Chicago for architecture/design; and USC for architecture. I had a gut feeling that I wanted to pursue acting, and my acceptance to NYU proved that it was possible. However, NYU is not the best with financial assistance, so I went to USC where there was more financial assistance than the other schools.
After the first day of architecture classes, I felt miserable. I knew I didn’t want to pursue something that I’d hate and didn’t want to waste any more time chasing a career I wasn’t passionate about. I switched to a theatre major the next day and the rest is history. My introduction to theatre was through the lens of arts activism. The first show I did at USC School of Dramatic Arts was “Facing Our Truth: Ten Minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilege” where I played George Zimmerman. The rehearsal process and production experience solidified my interest in arts for social change. In the summer of 2018, I participated in the Artist As Citizen Conference with Artists Striving To End Poverty at The Juilliard School and studied at Shakespeare’s Globe in London with a Fulbright Summer Institute Scholarship. I went on to produce work with One and All Theatre for Social Change and USC Arts in Action. One of the most impactful experiences I had working with USC Arts in Action was when we collaborated with Black Lives Matter LA, Reform LA Jails Coalition, White People for Black Lives and Dignity and Power Now for a show called “Jails and Justice” which highlighted conversations of prison abolition with real-life footage of community responses to the prison industrial complex and police brutality.
Over time, I added a journalism double major and a minor in dance. I started to let them collaborate and evolve with my career. I got tired of spending so much time looking at casting calls for Latinos and only seeing “gangster” and “criminal” roles available for me to choose from. After experiencing so much racism in the theatre and acting world, I decided to take a break and pivot full-time to dance and journalism. Not that dance and journalism doesn’t have issues of their own, they just weren’t as severe as the ones I experienced in acting. I’ve produced independent dance video projects and researched aspects of dance notation as I neared the end of my undergrad career. While I was working on shows in theatre and dance in the evenings, I was also working in the newsroom during the day with Annenberg Media. I interned as a digital production intern with ET Live where I covered celebrity and pop culture news for their 24-hour broadcast. I later went to freelance with their social media team and photograph celebrities like Priyanka Chopra, Hayley Williams and Megan Thee Stallion for our social coverage of BeautyCon 2019.
I was working at Tyra Banks’ ModelLand in Santa Monica before COVID-19 spread to the U.S. and shut down production. Dance projects I had scheduled for the rest of the Spring were also halted and I took the time to reflect and plan my next career change. I turned to journalism full-time and documented the impact the pandemic has had on the dance community. I created a short documentary called “Dancing at Home” and it later earned first place in LA Press Club’s “Life in the Time of the Coronavirus Contest.” After receiving recognition for my work in dance journalism, I decided to return to school and pursue an MA in Specialized Journalism (The Arts) through USC’s progressive degree opportunity. Now, I’m continuing freelance work in dance and journalism as I complete my thesis on dance as a tool for abolition and liberation, connecting with the work I did in my undergrad career and expanding on it.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not been easy getting to where I am today. Like I said before, there wasn’t a lot of support from the people back home in Texas. Since I’ve come to LA, it’s been all about the hustle. In my first semester at USC, Donald Trump was elected president. As a response, racism and xenophobia became more prevalent and visible in my hometown. In fact, the one gay bar in Fort Worth at the time was burned down. There was little investigation put into it, but it is safe to assume it derived from homophobia. As more instances like this started to come up, I felt less and less comfortable to go home after my first year of college like most college students do. I decided to stay in LA and scrambled to find a sublease and job last minute. That first summer was full of couch surfing and saving up money. I worked around five jobs at a time to pay for living expenses while also attending school full-time, occasionally going up to 21 units per semester. I sacrificed a lot to get where I am today, but I wouldn’t take it back for anything. I’m happy with the career I made for myself.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
A lot of my work is focused in arts activism and abolition. In theatre, I’m best known for my work with USC Arts in Action and I’m most proud of my work with “Jails and Justice.” It began as an invisible theatre project where groups of us would go into public spaces like trains and buses and reenact a conversation on prison abolition or policing. While the conversation developed and strangers joined in on the discussion, another person in the group would record their responses. From the footage we got, we devised a show that discussed the impact these conversations have in our protest of L.A. County’s $3.5 billion jail expansion plan. At the beginning of the experience, I had little knowledge on abolition and now it is a big part of what I do and who I am. As a multimedia journalist with a focus in dance and race reporting, I am best known for my reporting on dance and its intersection with identity. I did a series on queer dance culture in L.A., highlighting vogue and whacking. My reporting on the ballroom scene in L.A. followed the story of Isla Ebony and Thomas Davis, dissecting the importance vogue has in the LGBTQ+ community. It centered on The Catharsis Project’s Dauntless Ball that was dedicated to uplifting the community and HIV positive folk. This article also went on to receive an award with the LA Press Club. I’m also best known for my DEI work within the newsroom and my reporting on dance and culture.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
It’s difficult for me to remember a lot from my childhood. The one memory that does come to mind is when I went on a field trip in middle school and got in trouble with a few of my friends. We went deep into the woods at a park when we weren’t supposed to. We were just playing pretend like we were in The Wizard of Oz. Our teacher told us to spend the rest of the time at a bench as time out. There were two others who were there with us and they were really upset, but my friends and I didn’t care and continued to play around. It’s such a weird memory but I like it because my friends and I really made the most out of any situation, no matter how bad or boring.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.vargassteven.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steven.varg/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/Steven_Vargas_
Image Credits
USC-JailsandJustice-0150 – Gina Clyne
