Tribe Knight

While in Los Angeles, Garcia wrote, produced and directed his first film, A Rainy Day, which was distributed by Universal Television and shown in festivals nationally and internationally. He served as an artist, teacher, director and producer for numerous productions and classes at Highways Performance Space; resident playwright with the Mark Taper Forum’s Latino Theatre Initiative; and project artistic director and playwright with the community-based San Diego Playwrights Project. Garcia has also been a fixture on the Los Angeles alternative performing arts scene for many years,  one of a handful of artists who represent a fully developed, professional approach to  multi-disciplinary work. His solo performance works include “My Alien Abduction” and “Leo Garcia is Dead.”

The Los Angeles Stage Raw Theater Awards awarded Garcia with the 2016 Queen of the Angels Award. Garcia was “honored for his tenacity and skill while serving as artistic director for Highways in Santa Monica – recognition that his social media supporters described as ‘long overdue.’”

Out Magazine recognized Garcia as one of the OUT 100 of 2005, a list of the year’s most interesting, influential, and newsworthy LGBTQ people as a result of his many contributions to the arts as well as his indefatigable activism on behalf of alternative artists and the alternative arts community through the support and presentation of their performance works and in service to the community at large. In 2010, Garcia was honored by the HARC Foundation as a recipient of Trumpet Award for “his unique and extraordinary contributions to the Arts and to humanity.”

TribeLA Magazine Acrostic Interview.5

Special: Who or what holds a special place in your heart?
My heart is full of memories and thoughts. I have compassion. I love. I honor my heart and am grateful for the compassion it holds and for its beating.

How does this factor into your creative process?
We work together sometimes.

Time: What is your all-time favorite piece of writing/art/music you’ve created?
My favorite written work is a play entitled “Earth.” It is a magical realistic piece that tells of a mythic time in the history of an original New Mexican family. I love its language, its imagery, its storytelling. My favorite visual work is an oil pastel called Benevolence. It’s an image that encapsulates the idea of that which is existential; a moment when one steps into one’s own for the sake of the self itself. It’s an offering.