This talk will draw from Otálvaro-Hormillosa’s book, Erotic Resistance: The Struggle for the Soul of San Francisco (University of California Press, 2024) and explore the overlapping cultures of psychedelics, drag, erotic performance, and social justice movements that were unique to San Francisco during this time period.

Gigi Otálvaro-Hormillosa, Ph.D. is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, educator, psychogeographer, and Miami native, currently based in Northern California. Based on her dissertation completed at Stanford, her book Erotic Resistance: The Struggle for the Soul of San Francisco was just published by the University of California Press in February of 2024. She obtained her Ph.D. in Theater & Performance Studies with a minor in Art History from Stanford University. She is the recipient of the first-ever Stanford Theater & Performance Studies Department Carl Weber Prize for Integration of Creative Practice and Scholarly Research for her dissertation entitled Erotic Resistance: Performance, Art, and Activism, in San Francisco Strip Clubs, 1960s-2010s. Her M.A. thesis, Embodying Spaces: Memory and Resistance in the Aftermath of Argentina’s Dirty War (1976-1983), focused on cultural memory, embodiment, and the politics of space in relation to human rights activism, public art, and memorials in the aftermath of the dictatorship. Her work in performance and video has been presented nationally and internationally. She currently serves as Associate Director of Stanford Living Education at Stanford University where she leads the LifeWorks Program for Integrative Learning. She is also certified as a Laughter Yoga Leader and Yoqi® Qigong Associate Instructor who currently designs and teaches classes that combine laughter yoga, qigong, and other movement-meditation practices with theater and performance exercises.