Multidisciplinary visual artist Kia Labeija plays Dove in Pillar Point’s latest music video, voguing her way through Bogotá in search of her lover. The video takes us through the colorful streets of La Candelaria, Bogotá’s colonial neighborhood, which is packed with trendy cafés, street art, and student bars.
Kia Labeija, also known as Kia Benbow, comes out of the New York ball scene’s legendary House of Labeija – an incubator of queer black and Latino culture, where voguing and dance battles known as balls have flourished since 1977.
In “Dove,” directed by Jacob Krupnick, Labeija takes flight in and around the city’s streets, duck walking through an open air-market to the amusement of local passersby. She’s also seen cat walking past 400-year-old colonial homes with iron balconies and Spanish-tiled roofs before descending on one of downtown’s main intersections, where she continues to kill it with her incredible moves.
Labeija is an established HIV/AIDS activist and artist working in photography, performance, and installation. She was born with the virus and co-founded the artists’ collective #GenAIDS, which uses art and popular culture to connect with younger generations and foster a revival of HIV and AIDS reflection, but one that is not about fear and death and rather a celebration of life and love.
Labeija’s beautiful and powerful performance is complemented by the color and texture found in many other Latin American metropolises. When she posted the video on social media this week, she said she “fell in love over and over and over again” on the streets of Bogotá.