Becky Stein / Special
Identity is at the core of Kt Kilborn’s poetic work—including “Debutante Balls,” which Kilborn will excerpt Friday.

ONSTAGE: 4 GOOD NIGHTS TO BE SEEN + HEARD
Kathy Janich – Staff
The Atlanta Journal-Consitiution
Published on: Thursday, April 15, 2004

AT 5-FEET-10, with a lean, lanky frame, Kt Kilborn doesn't look like anybody's debutante. Still, like any good Southerner,
Kilborn did the social debut thing dutifully, not once but thrice --- at ages 16, 18 and 21.

But Kilborn, a self-described transgender, feminist performance artist with a national buzz going, doesn't see herself as female.
The short, blond hair, attitude and summer-sky-blue eyes that penetrate to your solar plexus make that point quietly, clearly,
incontrovertibly.

Identity is at the core of Kilborn's funny, sad, revealing, whip-smart and poetic work --- including "Debutante Balls," which the
artist will excerpt Friday at Seen + Heard. The five-night festival of visual art, music, poetry, theater and spoken word celebrates
woman-positive arts and artists. It began Wednesday and is sponsored by EstroFest Productions, an Atlanta group that's all about
women-centric stuff.

But men are involved, too. Atlanta playwright Steve Yockey's "Medusa" debuts tonight; New York performance artist Michael Burke
is up Saturday. Kilborn, 23, a 2002 Emory University graduate (interdisciplinary studies in society and culture), is an S+H co-producer.

Fellow performance artist Tim Miller is a fan. Miller, one of the NEA 4 --- artists shunned by the National Endowment for the Arts in
the early 1990s for "inappropriate" art --- says Kilborn's "charisma and intelligence" blew him away. "[Kilborn] is a bright, sharp and an
important new performer in this country," Miller says.

Kilborn reddens at the praise, but digs in when it's time to explain personal beliefs.

ON TRANSGENDER: "For me, it was growing up my whole life really believing I was a little boy," the artist says. "Telling my new friends
my name was Scott, and having that taken away. Gender is the dime on which so much of our identity turns. Your identity as a gendered
person is part of your identity as a sexual person, as a businessperson and so on."

ON THE ART: "Performance is the most powerful form of activism and of art that I know. To have somebody be right in front of you
giving you this story . . . sitting in your lap . . . it's amazing."

NIGHT JOB: Server at Wisteria on North Highland Avenue. Stop in. Tip big.

THE NUMBERS: More than 300 artists from around the world applied to Seen + Heard. About 70 made the final cut.

S+H BUDGET: The fest will cost less than $5,000. Producers raised money through mailings. Out-of-town acts are playing for free,
often paying their own way to Atlanta.

GIVING BACK: Events are wheelchair accessible. Proceeds will go to Fihankra Cultural Arts Center
(www.geocities.com/afrikandieli/Fihankra.html) in West End and Peachtree Rainbow Deaf Society (www.deafqueer.net/prds).

WHY COME TO SEEN + HEARD? "With as little bias as I can possibly have," Kilborn says, "I think it's probably going to be the most
exciting four nights of performance and art that have happened in a long time in Atlanta."