Miami Herald- October 24, 2007
Jordan Levin, jlevin@MiamiHerald.com

He wouldn't have time. "Find Jambek!" he says to assistant Cristina Maldonado, as he whirls into his office at 801 Projects, the artist studio complex he runs on Southwest Eighth Street by I-95. "Dile este nino to get his a - - over here. I need my mirrors. I'm furious. The 25th is my premiere. What day is it?"

The premiere is The Bugchasers, Campos' most ambitious piece and his first big commission, from the Carnival Center for the Performing Arts and Miami Dade College. Bugchasers tackles a deadly serious subject: gay men seeking to become HIV positive. But in typical Campos fashion, that idea leads to more: the need for love and acceptance, plastic surgery, obsession with image. Not that he talks about this seriously for long. Or knows just how he comes up with it all. "Here's our disco ball gas mask, that's the fabulousness of danger," Campos says, holding up a ski mask covered with silver sequins, a Bugchaser prop. "The red shoes are [penises]. I use metaphors a lot. And the wigs -- hairy knees. I don't know where that came from. And you have to have a clown nose."

Why?

"Because it's funny."

He swoops through the parking lot into Tinta y Caf , the restaurant downstairs where he has his one daily meal, and orders picadillo. "I have to have picadillo at least once a week," he says. "And iced caf con leche every day -- that's my drug." Besides his fluent Spanish, it's one of the few overtly Cuban things about Campos, who was raised in Westchester by Cuban parents. He says they wanted to put him in a mental institution when he came out at 17. "AIDS was the gay cancer then," he says. "My family freaked. For 2-3 years I almost never came home." Did that have anything to do with Bugchasers? "Oh, I wouldn't be surprised," he says.

His immediate inspiration was the "bugchaser" parties he discovered living in South Beach, where men shared the HIV virus in anonymous apartments. "There were no names, no condoms, no clothes," Campos says. It horrified and fascinated him. "Gay people have evolved this culture where sex and love are separate," he says. "Bugchasers is about what people do to be loved, and it's about the loss of innocence."

He shrugs again when asked whether some in the gay community won't be angered by the piece. "I'm just trying to be who I am," he says. "It's not about demeaning the gay community. It's about this is a reality, let's be aware."

BACK TO SCHOOL

Minutes before the performance art class he teaches at New World School of the Arts, he flies out to his waiting Aveo, through downtown, and into a parking spot that empties just as he pulls up to New World School of the Arts. "I always get parking," he says. "I just visualize it." As he waits for the elevator, he greets students. He seems very much at home -- although Campos will be 40 in December, there's still something 17 about him.

He's also taught here for 11 years. He's had this group of seven high school seniors since they were freshmen. "They'll do anything for me," he says proudly. "The only problem is I can't get them to stop." He watches them intently in an improvisation exercise, scribbling, laughing, pursing his lips. Afterward he listens just as intently as they talk about rebelling, finding themselves. "I get it. I'm with you," he tells one girl.

Campos started much more conventionally, studying modern dance in Miami and then at the State University of New York at Purchase. (There was also a semester playing clarinet as a music student at the University of Miami; he hopes to bring it back for a klezmer piece). He broke with modern dance after a performance with the Martha Graham Dance Company, when the director made him shave his chest before he went onstage so no hair would show above his gold unitard. He danced bleeding. "That's when I knew I wasn't meant for American modern dance," Campos says.

He auditioned for and got the leading role in an avant-garde dance theater production in Germany. He ended up mostly living there from 1996 to 2002, performing experimental theater and dance. It opened his mind, stoked his creativity, and taught him professional craft. "I was really humbled there," Campos says. 'I was so self-centered. And they were like `shut up and learn, you stupid American.' "

GOING COMMERCIAL

He's flying uptown on North Miami Avenue toward a rehearsal with The Playground Theater, an acclaimed children's group. It's one of the many commercial gigs he takes to support his experimental work. He's booking talent for Spiegeltent, the avant-garde club-circus extravaganza coming to Miami Beach this winter, and scouts potential performers for Cirque du Soleil.

He used to be embarrassed about taking jobs for money. No more. "I don't have a sugar daddy," Campos says, careening into a spot in front of a North Miami rehearsal studio and leaping from his car. "Bacardi paid for a lot of my pieces. I prefer to hone my skills in my field. It's still alternative in the commercial realm. Spiegeltent works for me. It looks good, and I get work for Miami artists."

He pauses before heading into the Playground rehearsal, for A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. Adapted by Pulitzer Prize winning playwright Nilo Cruz from a story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, it's certainly not junk, but it's a far cry from his own work. "I'm directing traffic," Campos sighs. "I don't even know what I'm doing." As soon as he steps inside, he's greeted by hugs and laughter from the actors. For three hours, Campos guides them through parades and simple dances, shows them how to move hips, toss scarves, count music.

By 6 p.m. Campos is exhausted, but he has one more stop -- Pridelines, a program for gay urban kids. He's working on a guerrilla theater piece there, something disruptive and defiantly gay.

"Building the cultural community is a major motive for me," Campos says. "I feel a responsibility to help keep it alive. I'm talking about building a community of high art."

When Campos walks into the bare concrete Pridelines building on Northeast Second Avenue, his regular group is absent, and none of the kids there, surfing the Internet and watching TV, seem to know where they are. Campos collapses on a worn black vinyl couch. "This is working in the trenches, honey," he mutters, then yells "Eddie! I need Eddie! Who has Eddie's number?"

One kid hands over his cellphone, and Campos calls the missing Eddie, and organizes a rehearsal for the next day. He hands back the phone and looks around at the ripped out ceiling, the bleak florescent lights.

"I love this place," he says, "I wish I'd had a place like this when I was young." At least he can go home an hour early. There's more work tomorrow. Campos brightens. "I like to believe that everything's possible. Always."

***

IF YOU GO:

What: Octavio Campos' The Bugchasers

When: 8 p.m. Oct. 25 to 27

Where: Studio Theater, Carnival Center for the Performing Arts, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami

How much: $25

Info: 305-949-6722 or www.carnivalcenter.org

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