Candida Valentina
“Multifaceted” is how you might describe Candida Valentina, thanks to the skills and talents she has acquired over her career. Valentina is an actress, model, and burlesque dancer, but she’s also the founder-producer of Queerly Beloved Revue, a bicoastal artist collective. As an artist herself, she prides herself most in community-building through performance. “When I first started to perform, it was just to have a creative outlet for myself,” Valentina tells GO. “That led me to producing shows to shed light on our local queer entertainers, [and] that quickly grew to working hand in hand with local venues to create more safe spaces within our community.” And being heavily involved in the LGBTQ+ community is especially important to Valentina, as she uses her platform to help push unity, diversity, and acceptance for queer individuals everywhere — even within the community itself. “I think that our community as a whole should continue to love with open minds, hearts, and arms,” says Valentina. “We all experience enough bullshit from outside of our community, we shouldn’t have to experience it in our community.” Queerly Beloved Revue hosts a wide range of performances across the country including (but not limited to) Drag, Burlesque, and Spoken Word, and Valentina leads her troupe with a motto about a few things we could use a little more of these days: “I.D.E.E.A.S: Inclusivity, Diversity, Entertainment, Education, and Slaying.” —GP
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