\ The “creator” in her was on display this past summer in an hour-long, one-woman, stage production at the Marigny Opera House titled “Ice Scream Theater.” Drawing much of her inspiration from her 100-page book of poems, These are the Rooms to my Mother’s House, Christy performed and sang in multiple roles and costumes as her onstage alter ego, “Vinylux.” Each costume change and role she portrayed chronologically recreated a phase of her early childhood and young adult life, much of which was troubled and traumatic. Reflecting on the reactions she received from some members of the audience, Christy said, “This show is speaking to people who have experienced suffering over a family member abusing drugs and alcohol. The message they’re taking away from it is that they’re not alone. So that means a lot to me: to have people tell me how much the play meant to them.” With her mother helplessly immersed in her abuse of illegal drugs, Christy was forced to assume adult responsibilities at an early age, housecleaning, cooking, doing laundry and babysitting her two younger siblings. Finally, in her later teens, Christy moved in with her grandparents. Despite falling two grades behind in high school, she was able to pass her GED over the summer and go on to college at Eastern Oregon University where she received a B.A. in 1996. Later that year she came to New Orleans for the first time with her four-year-old son, Athen, to attend graduate school at UNO on a Founders Grant. Attracted to New Orleans largely for its musical reputation, Christy admitted, “I had never even seen a picture of the place, but music has been such an influence my entire life. New Orleans is repeatedly mentioned in songs, so it just seemed like a magical place that existed in music.” Although she didn’t finish graduate school, Christy used her spare time creatively while working odd jobs, absorbing the culture of New Orleans and mapping out future strategies and initiatives. However, her plans were short-circuited by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Flooding of her Mid-City residence forced her to relocate to Fairhope, Alabama and eventually back to Klamath Falls but, on her return to New Orleans six years later, her muse came into full flowering. “When we moved back here we had to re-focus because we needed to research and find out how we, as an organization, could help the New Orleans landscape,” Christy said, adding that The Creativity Collective, which she founded in Klamath Falls in 2007, was reincorporated in New Orleans when she returned here. “We launched some crawls as fundraising entities and started looking at individual projects, especially Gradeuxity. We’ve hit a great stride with that,” Christy said. The first Bridal Crawl in 2013 attracted 50 participants: the second drew 200. “We have a lot of fun with these,” Christy laughed, describing such antics as brides dancing on bars and orchestrating flash mobs. “We have people who come back every year. Some have been to every one of them. We have couples – women and men both dressed like brides. Whole families (of adults) even.” The success of the Bridal Crawl inspired the creation of the Corset Crawl and the Leprecrawl, two years later. So, with all of these things going on, where does Christy see herself going? Deeper into her own original writing is her answer. One of her latest projects is a screenplay titled “Boo!” which Participants enjoy Bridal Crawl PHOTO BY CHRISTY SOTO she describes as “a feature-length supernatural thriller.” The logline for the script reads, “A female contractor who is unable to have children is terrorized by youthful ghosts and hostile neighbors while flipping a blighted New Orleans brothel, post-Katrina.” She expects to start shopping the script to producers and agents after it has undergone a table read and final revisions. Summing up her feelings about her adopted city, Christy agrees with the widely accepted description of New Orleans as a “muse” for creative artists. “It facilitates a lifestyle that allows a person to create art,” she notes. But she is also quick to add that “Creativity doesn’t simply come through osmosis. Art is a job. You’ve got to be tenacious and realize just how hard you’re going to have to work. “But I would definitely say New Orleans is the kind of city where you can have a quality of life and still create art,” Christy continued. “You can still have a decent life and commit to the arts here. The quality of life, even for a struggling artist in New Orleans can be more forgiving than a bigger city. Struggling has been a great inspiration in my life but the brightness of beautiful things can also be an inspiration.” For more information go to www. creativitycollective. com or visit https:// www.facebook. com/cmsoto72. ( Photos above: Ice Scream Theater, Photos 1-6 by Roy Guste, Photos 7-8 by Mike Goetz, and Photo 9 courtesy of Christy Soto S E P T E M B E R / O C TOB E R 2 0 1 7 breakthrumediamagazine.com | BREAKTHRU MEDIA | 21
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