Arts & Entertainment
The need for speed
Gay Games vet hopes for more gold
Chuck Harney at his shop, the Bike Rack on Q Street. (Washington Blade photo by Kevin Majoros)
As a teenager on his high school tennis team in Los Angeles, Chuck Harney had another thing on his mind. He had the need for speed. To fulfill that need, he began competing in downhill and slalom ski racing on Mammoth Mountain.
The thrill of racing down a mountain wasn’t quite enough, so while he was still in his teens, he transitioned to bicycle touring and spent his time trekking along the coast of California, Oregon and through parts of Europe.
“I love to be on my bike,” says Harney, 52. “I love the speed and I love the freedom.”
Harney moved to D.C. in 1991 and began racing in cycling on the local circuit and across the United States as a member of Team DC Velo. In 1994, he struck gold at the Gay Games in New York. He also captured gold in cycling at the Chicago Gay Games in 2006.
Looking for something to add to his cycling, Harney transitioned to triathlons (swim-bike-run), duathlons (run-bike-run) and Xterra off-road triathlons in 1998. He qualified for the World Duathlon Championships and competed for Team USA from 2008-2011.
After taking a few years off, Harney is back on the bike training for the Cleveland Gay Games in August. The Gay Games offers four events in cycling: road race, individual time trial, team time trial and criterium (closed-off short course racing).
As co-owner of the Bike Rack on Q St., N.W. in D.C., Harney always has one foot on the bike. In preparation for the Games, he will be spending a lot of long hours on the bike.
“I will also do race specific training,” he says. “Along with distance work with my teammates, there will be interval training and hill climbing. We will also probably compete in some local races leading up to the Games.”
There are a lot of hazards in the sport of cycling. Most cyclists sport road rash on a regular basis. For Harney, the crashes are just part of the sport, but he did share another hazard he faced at a duathlon race in Columbia, Md., on a very cold December day.
“It was so cold, that I decided to wear leg warmers on the first run,” he says laughing. “During the run they started coming down and were clumped around my ankles by the time I got to my bicycle. That was my first and last race in leg warmers.”
For the Games in Cleveland, Harney says his focus will be on supporting and hanging out with his teammates from D.C. Velo that will also be competing at the Games.
His competitive spirit emerged when he also added that he was putting a group together for the team time trial that should bring home the gold medal.
The need for speed never dies.
Team DC, the umbrella organization for LGBTQ-friendly sports teams and leagues in the D.C. area, held its annual Night of Champions Awards Gala on Saturday, April 20 at the Hilton National Mall. The organization gave out scholarships to area LGBTQ student athletes as well as awards to the Different Drummers, Kelly Laczko of Duplex Diner, Stacy Smith of the Edmund Burke School, Bryan Frank of Triout, JC Adams of DCG Basketball and the DC Gay Flag Football League.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2024 National Cannabis Festival was held at the Fields at RFK Stadium on April 19-20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Covering the @NatlCannaFest at RFK Stadium for @WashBlade . Stop by the LGBTQ+ booth and pick up a paper if you are here. pic.twitter.com/is7hnsaPns
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) April 20, 2024
Theater
‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor
‘Amm(i)gone’
Thorough May 12
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D St., N.W.
$60-$70
Woollymammoth.net
“Fully and utterly autobiographical.” That’s how Adil Mansoor describes “Amm(i)gone,” his one-man work currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Both created and performed by out artist Mansoor, it’s his story about inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Sophocles’s Greek tragedy “Antigone” into Urdu. Throughout the journey, there’s an exploration of family, queerness, and faith,as well as references to teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his Muslim mother.
Mansoor, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is now based in Pittsburgh where he’s a busy theater maker. He’s also the founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former artistic director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQ youth arts organization.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What spurred you to create “Amm(i)gone”?
ADIL MANSOOR: I was reading a translation of “Antigone” a few years back and found myself emotionally overwhelmed. A Theban princess buries her brother knowing it will cost her, her own life. It’s about a person for whom all aspirations are in the afterlife. And what does that do to the living when all of your hopes and dreams have to be reserved for the afterlife?
I found grant funding to pay my mom to do the translation. I wanted to engage in learning. I wanted to share theater but especially this ancient tragedy. My mother appreciated the characters were struggling between loving one another and their beliefs.
BLADE: Are you more director than actor?
MANSOOR: I’m primarily a director with an MFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon. I wrote, directed, and performed in this show, and had been working on it for four years. I’ve done different versions including Zoom. Woolly’s is a new production with the same team who’ve been involved since the beginning.
I love solo performance. I’ve produced and now teach solo performance and believe in its power. And I definitely lean toward “performance” and I haven’t “acted” since I was in college. I feel good on stage. I was a tour guide and do a lot of public speaking. I enjoy the attention.
BLADE: Describe your mom.
MANSOOR: My mom is a wonderfully devout Muslim, single mother, social worker who discovered my queerness on Google. And she prays for me.
She and I are similar, the way we look at things, the way we laugh. But different too. And those are among the questions I ask in this show. Our relationship is both beautiful and complicated.
BLADE: So, you weren’t exactly hiding your sexuality?
MANSOOR: In my mid-20s, I took time to talk with friends about our being queer with relation to our careers. My sexuality is essential to the work. As the artistic director at Dreams of Hope, part of the work was to model what it means to be public. If I’m in a room with queer and trans teenagers, part of what I’m doing is modeling queer adulthood. The way they see me in the world is part of what I’m putting out there. And I want that to be expansive and full.
So much of my work involves fundraising and being a face in schools. Being out is about making safe space for queer young folks.
BLADE: Have you encountered much Islamophobia?
MANSOOR: When 9/11 happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so yes. I faced a lot then and now. I’ve been egged on the street in the last four months. I see it in the classroom. It shows up in all sorts of ways.
BLADE: What prompted you to lead your creative life in Pittsburgh?
MANSOOR: I’ve been here for 14 years. I breathe with ease in Pittsburgh. The hills and the valleys and the rust of the city do something to me. It’s beautiful, it’ affordable, and there is support for local artists. There’s a lot of opportunity.
Still, the plan was to move to New York in September of 2020 but that was cancelled. Then the pandemic showed me that I could live in Pittsburgh and still have a nationally viable career.
BLADE: What are you trying to achieve with “Amm(i)gone”?
MANSOOR: What I’m sharing in the show is so very specific but I hear people from other backgrounds say I totally see my mom in that. My partner is Catholic and we share so much in relation to this.
I hope the work is embracing the fullness of queerness and how means so many things. And I hope the show makes audiences want to call their parents or squeeze their partners.
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‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
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