p1nkstar is, without a doubt, Austin’s Queer Pop Princess, and the tiara that she beautifully wears is a symbol of a lineage of diva pop stars that we have been grown up and danced along with. Yet her presence on the club scene is expansive in its ability to not only dismantle the gender binary system, with the glamour befitting of a Princess, but is also inserting a politics that centers transgender people of color into its performance repertoire. Let’s let P1nkstar guide us into her glam world, with saccharine-infused beats and songs that challenge our understanding of pop music.
Resources / Related Links:
GIRLS LIKE US PERFORMANCE
P1nkstar’s website
P1nkstar’s instagram
Laura G. Gutiérrez (she/her/hers/they/ella/elle) is a Mexican and Latinx performance studies, visual studies, and cultural studies scholar. Gutiérrez was born in Nuevo Ideal, Durango, Mexico, and, in 1977, migrated to Chicago. She currently resides in Austin, TX, but she’s also made homes in Tucson, AZ and Mexico City. Gutiérrez is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at The University of Texas at Austin where she teaches courses related to (popular) culture. Her research revolves around the examination of gender, race, and sexuality in Latinx and Mexican performance and visual art. She is the author of Performing Mexicanidad: Vendidas y Cabareteras on the Transnational Stage (U of Texas Press, 2010), as well a number of articles, book chapters, and catalog essays. Because of her deep commitment to contemporary art and culture-makers, Gutiérrez is on the board of and part of the curating team of OUTsider Fest, an Austin-based queer transmedia nonprofit, and, occasionally, collaborates with artists.
p1nkstar™️ (ur fav electr0nic pop superstar!!) creates a world far removed from this dimensions binaries through music and conceptual shows mixing saccharine beats with subversive lyrics, tiaras with ball gags, and body hair with hypnotic ponytails. Merging hyperpop with neo-perreo and club, she has been described as “early Aughts Paris Hilton on Hello Kitty steroids” by The Austin Chronicle, who recently crowned her as their Queer Pop Princess. In her live performances p1nkstar affectionately delivers pure pop performance, mixing witty vocals with electronic beats and video interludes with choreographed numbers and back-up dancers. Since her performance debut in late 2016, p1nkstar has shared bills with Charli XCX, Crystal Waters, The Ladies of LCD Soundsystem, Alok V. Menon, Dorian Electra, JD Samson, OSHUN, and Sateen.
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p1nkstar released her debut EP “Number 1 Hits!” March 6 2020, featuring five songs produced in collaboration with Mr.Kitty, Ben Aqua & Boy Sim. Bringing her Latinx roots to the increasingly popular hyperpop genre, p1nkstar lays out a bilingual story that touches on the complexities of her queer, trans and immigrant identities in our hyper-mediated digital world. The EP consists of futuristic beats and highly-processed vocals in which p1nkstar renders and invites her listeners into a queer futurity she envisions.
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Since moving from Mexico in 2014, p1nkstar has rapidly become an emblematic figure in the Texas nightlife scene by opening inclusive spaces that center that work of queer and trans artists of color in a city that is rapidly becoming whiter and straighter. p1nkstar has received two Best of Austin awards for her space-making work in the arts and nightlife & has been presented as the future of nightlife by The Austin Chronicle.