Oregonian Marchandt's singular circus

Mx. Zeloszelos Marchandt does a bit of everything, everywhere & almost all at once

Zeloszelos Marchandt is a unique Pacific Northwest character in the same way that curves that cross themselves and cusps are examples of singularities. It’s just math.

Mx. Zeloszelos Marchandt, in “Ecco Homo” by Max Hinz

He’s a Forest Grove product with Tennessee roots. A Black and Indigenous performer/producer, whom I know from his journalism past. When we spoke earlier this spring, he had just exited a collaboration with the West Coast Black Circus–A gender expansive collective of Black circus artists, dancers, poets, and activists–and was preparing to do Ten, Tiny, Talks, the Portland storytelling residency. The art mag Hypoallergenic had just featured the above image of him in its feature on divinity among queer and trans artists. Marchandt was on his way to celebrate his birthday in Marrakesh when I caught him on Zoom. 

The first time I met this 44 year old he was in charge of news at Portland’s largest indie radio station. He had me on to talk about late Pittsburgh Pirates legend Dock Ellis, who 1) was still red-hot around the James Blagden animated take on my narrative and 2) on Wednesday would have marked the 54th anniversary of his unique no-hitter.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Donnell Alexander: Today we’ve got a guest with an incredible second act. A renaissance person. We’re talking about an amazing second act—someone who’s an Oregonian in a way that very few people are. I’m fascinated by your Oregon ways.

He’s an artist, he’s a journalist.

Zeloszelos Marchardt: I am.

DA: Zelos Marchandt, ladies and gentlemen. (Laughs)

ZM: That’s got to be the best welcome in that I’ve ever received in my life. (Laughs)

DA: I’m curious, which part of that is the best?

ZM: All of it. I just feel like a lot of people are asleep on this planet. I think they get overwhelmed when any one of us who are doing more than one thing well. So, people are like, “Here’s Zelos. He… does a lot of things!” (Laughs) That’s usually what I get, even though I’ll say, Hey, here are the main things I do. Yeah, I do a lot of different things, but I think they get nervous.

So, saying all the stuff that you did? I don’t know. Oregon ways, I love that. I practically grew up here, I never really felt enmeshed in Oregon. It’s really clear to me that a lot people who were born and raised here operate differently. So, I’ll take Oregon ways. (Laughs)

DA: You live on a peacock ranch—

ZM: It’s an urban farm. I don’t have the peacocks anymore. Those fuckers were too uppity for me.

DA: I don’t know about these things. But tell me about “rescue peacocks.” What is that?

ZM: They weren’t rescue peacocks. I think that somebody decided to haze me, because they started putting the urban farm as a listing in Southern and Eastern Oregon as a peacock rescue and as a peacock farm.

Where I live is so not that. We did have a couple of peacocks. They were egg laying. I’m not a good peacock farmer. I don’t do any of that stuff. So, every spring we would get inundated with calls of, Hey, can you come get this peacock? Or, do you sell peacocks—we’re desperate for peacocks! I used to take time to answer folks because it was cute, but it really got out of hand last year, to where I had be like, ‘Where are you getting this information that we’re a peacock rescue?’ We had literally two.

They were homage to the matriarchs in my family, my grandparents—my grandmothers—who were really into animal husbandry. One lived in Palm Springs, where it’s just really common that there are peacocks, like on desert farms and stuff. You know, you’ve been to Santa Fe, you just see peacocks hanging out, causing trouble and some stuff like that. I just thought it was so neat as a kid.

The grandmother in Palm Springs—to her credit—had them caged. They had like a pen that they were in, so they weren’t getting out and causing trouble. My grandmother in Nashville—technically Eagleville—also had them. I think it was just really common for house alarms to, like, screech. They’re territorial, so they might make a ruckus of people they don’t know.

My peacocks were lazy, they didn’t do any of that stuff. I think they knew it was an urban farm, so they were just always like fanning and looking for compliments. They weren’t actually doing their job and started getting into the garden and, like, coming up to the house, so I was like, “You guys gotta go. I’ve had enough!” [Laughs]

DA: Those are the preliminaries. We got those out of the way.

Zeloszelos Marchandt

ZM: Not a peacock farm.

DA: Do you think you were born a circus performer, or did life make you one? I’ll give you a second to filibuster on that—

ZM: Oh no, I was born a circus performer.

DA: I explained that you’re a renaissance person, but right now the circus is a big part of your life.

ZM: I think it was always a big part of my life. This is a discussion that happens a lot in circus arts: What makes a circus performer? When is running five miles a couple of times a week not enough? [Laughs] There’s a lot of discussion around—and this is a buzzword—neuro-divergent or neuro-spicy or something like that.

I think there might be something to that, because gymnastics and circus arts are all about having a conversation with the body and having control or facility over the body. I don’t know if I like the word control, although that is a correct word, because we’re learning about the body and then being able to put it into action in very specific ways [that] it’s got potential to move in.

Then, there’s the other element of circus where gymnastics isn’t enough. Or, where you’re like, “Oh, I could do splits, but what else could I do in these splits?” [Laughs] You feel compelled to dance. What else can I express with it?

It’s very special in that dance circus is not just athleticism and it’s not just art. It’s both of those things together. Looking back on my childhood, I was always moving and innovative and curious. We grew up super poor, as I told you, but I remember getting springs out of a mattress and wondering, “Can I make stilts out of these?” I had no idea that other people were doing that, but I was just inspired by what the body could do, by performance. And it didn’t seem weird to me to try to figure out new ways to, not just test its limits, but use apparatuses around me to express that.

I was really into gymnastics. I didn’t know that circus arts was a possibility until I was, like, 12 and trying to figure out what to do with my life, living in Forest Grove, Oregon at the time. In the nineties, that was not a cute place to live. The Klan was everywhere.

I went to the library. I hit the books. A lot of people think I got into circus by like, “Ah, they do gymnastics or they dance!” They just saw it. No. I’ve always been a researcher and I was like, I gotta figure out how to get out of this small town and what to do with the talents that I have. Research has always been a part of that.

So, I went to the library and I found this dusty old book about The Ecole in Montreal. It was mostly in black and white; it was from the fifties or sixties, or something, and was describing people who would go and study clowning, they would study arts. There were singers in there, competing in classical singing.

I was like: That’s it—people actually go to school for this. I knew I wanted to go to school, I knew I wanted to do those things. That’s when I realized there’s a type of person like this. I always had a clue. It was more like, What do I do with that? And my family was really not happy that I discovered the circus. (Laughs)

In a lot of Black or Black-infused families you’re expected to go be a doctor or a teacher or lawyer. I dunno, that is what I got. My grandmother was really big in the medical field, my uncle was a doctor, my grandmother was a nurse, my aunt… there were just really high hopes for me to go be a doctor. And I was like, I’m going to be an artist! My grandmother just stopped talking to me for a good year.

DA: You do so many things that we’re only going to be able to talk about everything a little bit. We’ll put a button on the circus; after this we’ll leave it to everyone’s imagination, but you have to describe the circus. I haven’t been. Tell me what I’d see.

ZM: God, how to describe the circus… usually I just say, Cirque du Soleil to people and they’re like, “Oh… oh yeah. So the silky things from the ceiling?” and I’m like, Yes, I have done those for a number of years. I’ve been in circus long enough that I’ve had professional experience on a lot of different aerial stuff. I started on the ground as a tumbler, acrobatics, handstand. Then I just saw aerial and I fell in love with that.

There’s the silks, which most people are familiar with. There’s a big metal hoop called the lyra that I used to do more professional work in. I can do it, but it’s not my main apparatus anymore. I’m considered a contortionist, although I took a break from that for a few years in the pandemic and then returned to it. And hand balancing. Trapeze was actually my first apparatus. I’ve returned to that and am really enjoying returning to that.

DA: I was thinking more specifically about the West Coast Black Circus.

ZM: Oh yeah. I’m actually not in that anymore, as of yesterday. [Laughs, takes a cigarette drag] But I can tell you about it, because it sparked other Black circuses across the United States.

DA: How so?

ZM: Well, it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve always been the only one in the Black-Native community that was doing it. There’s one other person I found. Her name is Belinda Rose. She’s born and raised in Portland and does predominantly lyra and flow.

I just had faith that, by virtue of performing, more Black people would find circus and that maybe we’d find each other. Then, two or three years ago, some Black folk who weren’t into circus and wanted to get into it got a bunch of other folk together and was just like, We want to do a Black circus. We want to have the first West Coast Black Circus.

I just sort of watched this for a little while, because some of these folks didn’t have… some of them had experience, but none of them had produced anything on a grand scale. They hadn’t done any of that and I had. So, eventually I got with them. I said, Hey, I can help facilitate some of this stuff—a lot of the circus schools were mistrustful about just giving resources to these folks. But they knew me. And I thought that if they just saw all of us working together they would see that we were viable.

It takes a lot of work to audition and stuff. The first year was just a lot of talking, then last year I was like, I really want to make sure this goes somewhere, so let’s actually start producing shows. I made a point to travel to other schools. For instance, there’s the New England Black Circus. They talked to some of the members before we were really like a Black circus and were really inspired by where we were going.

Arguably, a lot of Black Circuses coalesced before us. (Laughs) True to Portland form, a lot of people were just talking and idea sharing, and I feel like the Willamette Valley is really good at generating ideas… but, like, the New England Black Circus popped up. There is the Midwestern BIPOC Circus Alliance. They were already around and they operate differently. I met Chris Rooney, who runs that. They do performances, but are more resource based. I don’t think they tour shows or anything like that.

[West Coast Black Circus] is at once something that inspired people on the East Coast to do something like it and inspired other circus schools to have more BIPOC-centered, Black-Indigenous, people-of-color tracks. But also it’s a movement that’s happening at the same time. It was super special. It wasn’t just like being in Portland and saying, “Let’s do this thing!”

Clearly there were lots of us who were Black, in different parts of the United States, wondering what to do with these crazy talents that we had, that didn’t fit into a medical program. (Laughs) It was kinda like a phenomenon.

DA: I would go deeper if you were still doing things with this circus. But I do find it fascinating, just the existence. What kind of person joins a circus? You’re talking about a minority within a minority. Very small.

ZM: It is kind of small. It’s very competitive. I couldn’t imagine not doing it. A lot of it is… I’m more than the art that I put out in the world. Those of us who are drawn to circus, it’s literally the conversation we’re having with our body. Like, you hear artists say, “I couldn’t not make art.” That’s a part of it. It’s definitely the way I process. I do not feel right when I’m not doing it. Same with singing. I’ve got to be doing these things or I feel completely disconnected from my body.

Also, I have real health challenges. Circus has probably saved my life, especially contortion. It’s just high-level physical therapy. I am hyper-mobile and have MCAS syndrome, so I need to be stretching. I need to make sure my muscles know they are tracking, the bones are tracking, all of that. I’ve found that a lot of people in circus are in that category of wellness tool, like a lot of people love yoga. It’s something I need to do.

Also, I’m turning 44 this month and I’ve been doing circus since 2008, professionally. My body is designed, at this this point, to do it. (Laughs) It’s conditioning for sure. I’ve kept up this gymnast-level work. It’s used to that.

DA: You and I have known each other for, like, 10 years now.

ZM: It’s kind of wild to think about it.

DA: I knew you before you transitioned.

ZM: True.

DA: And I don’t think we’ve smoked weed since you transitioned.

ZM: We’ve got to fix that. I don’t know how we haven’t done that.

DA: And I’d like to know what’s up with that.

ZM: I know why. We’ll be like ships passing in the night. And we’ll be like, Okay, let’s go meet at the coffee shop. It’s hard to get a good blunt in with that, I guess.

DA: You’re someone who’s an Oregonian. You’ve lived in the rural part, you’ve done Portland. And you’ve done it as a woman. You’ve done it as a man. How did coming into your gender change how you see race in Portland? And I’m just assuming that it did. Maybe it didn’t?

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ZM: That’s a great question. I feel like it’s both my job to distill, even though we’re distilling into an easy-to-describe answer in real time. Being assigned female and moving through the world as a Black/Native-mixed femme, I got all the joys and all of the hardships of moving through the world as a Black woman. But also it was really clear to me that, with anybody I ever had static with, that even though I was presenting as female I was not having that experience. It took years to figure, Oh, I’m communicating as a guy and that is really putting off the women in my life.

That’s something a lot of trans guys talk about. We do get violence from the feminine that’s hard to talk about, especially for what I call late-transition guys. We transitioned later. I did not transition in my teens, I transitioned a little after I met you, you know? So, how do we be honest about that—that’s part of our transition: We’re getting punished for not fitting this feminine mode. And guys, they’re either, down with what they call “tomboy nature” or whatever, our energy. They’re also looking at us like, “You’re a girl.”

Coming to the other side of it, I’m still processing—and we talked about it in a coffee shop: What does it mean to be a Black guy in America and the world? It’s clear that we’re treated different. I’m kind of shocked by how shitty the world treats Black guys, not that I didn’t know that.

DA: What’s news to you?

ZM: I don’t know if you recall, but I rushed a lot of my surgeries because of the Trump administration. I didn’t want to be left out or have a waiting list after that. That’s when I started taking HRT. Those years in lockdown? I came in as a woman, I joke, and I came out a very handsome bull. (Laughs)

The thing is, I did not get a lot of social practicing in, because we were all on lockdown. I didn’t have bars to go to or people to go out with or anything like that. I just had my partners that I was staying with. I was really nervous about that and when the day would come and we came out, that I’d be able to acclimatize to my new role: what I needed to be responsible for, how I needed to move around the world.

So, I still feel like I’m learning that, lickety-split. Some of the things I’ve noticed are, like, this assumption that we get the same privilege as white, CIS dudes. I’ve had a lot of arguments—not arguments, but healthy disagreements and discussions—about what male privilege is and whether that extends to a trans-masculine person. And I’m like, I don’t think it does.

I do get privileges. People will never doubt the wisdom that I usually have. As a Black femme, I was invisible. You have to fight so hard to just be taken seriously. You’re made fun of all the time. You’re just given a lot of flack. You could have a PhD and people still aren’t recognizing what you’ve got. I feel like as a Black guy that’s still a hardship, but really not as much. I don’t have to worry about being followed home. Or arguing for a pay raise or contractual stuff.

On the other side of it, there’s this crazy double standard—and maybe it’s because I’m a trans guy; I’m still processing this—where we’re not supposed to complain about anything. That typical thing. As a trans guy I feel like people want to connect to my vulnerability because of the feminine experience that I’ve had, but don’t want to honor the masculine one if I don’t feel like talking about something.

There’s also a lot more pressure to provide, to be there for everybody. To make sure everyone has resources, but there’s no one there to hold me per se when I need to put stuff down or I need to—

DA: But you were after that experience.

ZM: I don’t know a single trans guy who’s going in there like, You know what I would really love? I would love discrimination as a Black guy as part of my trans experience. No one’s saying that. As a CIS dude you’re not like, Oh, I’m so glad to experience—

DA: Well, no. The things people want from you are different from someone who’s presenting as a woman.

ZM: I think it’s different. There’s this attitude that I’m always ready to obliterate that being a trans guy undoes all the stuff that you’ve been through as a woman. That’s just not my experience. People still question your intelligence because you’re not white. That’s not going away. A lot of preconceived ideas about what being transgender is. I even think that’s true inside our transgender community—there’s this idea that we’re all operating on the same evolutionary level and it’s so not true.

‘I’ve turned a corner where white guys are opening doors for me, if I’m dressed nice. And I can tell they’re doing it as a sign of respect. But sometimes it just seems suspicious.’

I have a friend that transitioned when they were 16. They were a trans guy for 10-ish years and realized that was a mistake and started de-transitioning and consider themselves this lesbian now. They’re also intersex. They argue that there’s this instant privilege that trans guys have. But she’s also 32 to my 44. So, I’m like, “You’ve had one puberty though. I’ve had two puberties and I got a little taste of menopause as well. And I’m here to say that there’s something difficult about both these genders and I don’t feel like I’m experiencing a ton of privilege.

She was like, if you transitioned back, you would feel that. I was like, maybe. But how much of that experience is the fact that you were not a trans guy. I can imagine transitioning and then going back and really feeling the sting of that.

In terms of what’s hard about being what I’m trying to describe, I think I was telling you that people expect me to be loaded like Lil Nas or expecting me to be poverty ridden. There’s no middle ground, it seems. I can’t quite figure out where that is coming from.

I definitely feel more visible. That’s bizarre, I’m not sure which I prefer, the invisibility of being a Black femme or that everybody knows that I’m Black, if that makes sense. Black women have to fight for that identity. Everybody’s just like, ah, a Black woman. When people think of a Black person, they really think of Black guys, right? 

There was an SNL skit that I can relate to. They were making fun of white people rediscovering Beyonce recently and how she “came out as Black.” All of the white people in the skit were losing their shit. And all of the white women were like, “Oh my God, Beyonce’s Black?!” And the Black women were like, “Yeah, Karen. She’s Black.” And she was like, “No, she’s not! She’s not Black!” Then there’s this woman, could have been named Monique, and she’s like, “I’m Black.” And she’s like, “No, you’re not.” Then [Monique] points to a Black guy and says, “He’s Black.” And she says, “Oh, I know that.” And that kinda sums it up, you know?

DA: Here’s the thing I wanted to ask you about. We talked about it, and it’s a conversation you can’t have everywhere. But: White people being nice to you in Portland. 

I was working on a project about (Northeast Portland) reparations when we talked, and the idea has actually attracted interest from another publication because it’s got enough traction. It’s almost like the show Portlandia. Portlandia’s not about Portland specifically–there’s a Portlandia… I live in Echo Park, I live in Portlandia. (Laughs) Boston has its Portlandia. And I think there are [reparations] movements like this that aren’t Portland. Sort of reparations on a miniature level.

Along with this… great stuff, there’s sometimes a discomfort in how nice people are to us. I experience it, and I don’t know if “nice” is the right word. I’ve noticed it up in Portland, but it’s not just Portland. Is this something to even be talking about?

ZM: I remember that conversation. I think also that I turned a corner. If I don’t say to somebody that I’m trans or two spirit, they don’t know. They will eventually find out. This is where I was disagreeing with that friend I was telling you about: You only get all of these privileges if you play the game correctly, and you get clocked all of the time. Some people are like, Aw, you must just be gay. 

A lot of people presume sometimes. But I’ve turned the corner where white guys are opening the door for me, that still happens, especially if I’m dressed nice. And I can tell they’re doing it as a sign of respect. But sometimes it just seems suspicious.  (Laughs) They wouldn’t normally, and for a guy to do that given the modern world we live in, I get really turned up about it. Especially because I come from the feminine world in which guys are opening doors for you and I’m like, “Don’t you do that!” 

And I’m like, “Oh my god, do they know?” For me, my heart stops. They know and they’re trying to tell me I’m not a real guy. All this stuff goes through your head as a trans masculine person. But then I realize, I think this is performative, this is their form of reparations. Like, I–a white, CIS male–am opening the door for you, sir.” (Laughter) “You are the king, I open the door for you now!” 

DA: I’ve had that experience, and I’m like, “Is that $.75 worth of reparations?” What are we doing?

ZM: I still think about that. I am still sitting on that conversation, because I’m such a punk also. I get that we’ve all got to play the game, in terms of being adults and getting along, giving each other pleasantries and networking and blah blah. I totally get that. What I don’t like? I don’t like two-facedness. I don’t like people who if they’re shady aren’t as shady to my face. Look, I don’t want your performance, I want the real gems. You know what I’m talkin’ about?

Opening the door. I agree that it happens a lot on the West Coast and you’re like it happens down here and not just in Portland. I still say that the way it happens in the Portland Metropolitan Area is way thicker than anywhere else. Like, if I go up to Washington people are not doing that, and maybe it’s because there’s more niggas up there, I don’t know. (Laughs) I travel a lot, and I stand by what I say. I will almost die on this hill about how much worse it is in Portland. 

I feel like your tone was, Dude, you’re here now. You know how it is for Black guys, you better take those reparations where you can. And I was like, “Oh, I just got told. Yeah, maybe I should just shut up and take these.” I feel like as a Black guy I’m getting it all over the place and you doubly can’t win. And I’m trans and bi and queer to boot.  So, I just feel like I’m in a minefield all of the time.

(Editor’s note: As I recall the conversation, my gist was that our grandparents would be stunned and perhaps appalled at our carping over the quality of how white people are nice to us. Recently, I heard a Dodger fan complain that, Yeah, the team is winning. But they’re winning with free agents and hitting, not with pitching and defense. And I was like, GTFOH; in Cleveland they take wins however they can get them. In that Northeast Portland cafe, Z and I were sounding spoiled like that.)

I totally get where Childish Gambino is coming from with “This is America.” At the same time, I’m not supposed to pop off about it too much because of the optics of that. Is it that important that I pop off or talk about it? We’ve had a lot taken from us and we still have to work more for what we’ve got, in a different way. I just feel that, as a Black guy, there’s a lot of people that just want to take stuff. They generally don’t want Black people to have anything or Native people to have our stuff back anyway. But I definitely feel like an overt animosity toward a Black man having things. 

If I was a femme again and I had stuff, no one would be questioning that I was doing okay. They almost expect a woman to be in charge of that, to be spending stuff. Then when you add that I’m not CIS to boot, it’s almost like, “Oh no, Negro. You can’t have that.” 

When you told me that, I was like, Yeah, maybe this is part of the experience and I don’t get to say how it’s going to go, per se, because it’s such a bigger structure than me. This is a part of it. Yeah, I should let this white guy open the door for me or let white people do nice things for me, whether it’s performative or not. Because, it’s like, When am I gonna get any rest, if that makes any sense.  

DA: You can’t know the percentage of it that is performative, how much is for themselves, what’s for us, and where that line is. We just can’t know. But I think most of it is legitimate, I really do. It feels heartfelt to me, but I know it’s a learned behavior now. It’s part of the culture. Not doing it in Portland is a good way to be ostracized. So, at what point are we talking about authentic feelings when that’s part of the culture? And I think it’s a great thing that this has become part of the culture. 

ZM: That’s a good point.

DA: Beats having stuff thrown at you from a truck.

ZM: (Laughing) I have never had so many white girls want to date me in my entire life. 

DA: What’s up with that?

ZM: What’s up with that? Is this 1988 or what? I thought jungle fever was done. Are we done? But I think you made a really valid point. I think I got stuck on, Is this performance or not? But we both know as journalists that once something becomes a part of the culture it’s like a whole new conversation. That brings up the question for me of, When white people are doing these nice things and want to be our friends or hang out, I’m over here wondering, How real is this relationship? I get super existential about it, and maybe it’s because I’m a happy nihilist that I’m like, Are they with me because it’s part of a cultural thing that they’re doing and they’re not present with it? Or are they actually down with me? 

That’s where I am, I think. Does that make any sense?

DA: You said you had a second puberty and a touch of menopause. One of the reasons I find our conversations fascinating is the newness of your male experience. It’s like a trans Big. 

ZM: At this point, it’s been several years. Definitely not fresh anymore. That’s all really challenging because of what I said several minutes ago. There’s this idea out there that trans people are thinking the same thoughts in that category or having the same experiences. And it’s so not true. I have a really hard time hanging out with folks that are new to transition. Or they have chosen to not transition, but maybe haven’t made peace with who they are on the inside. 

I’ve been at this almost a decade. It’s really not for the faint of heart, because it’s a whole new puberty, inside and out. It really calls into question who you want to be, the relationships you want to have. All of that stuff.  I don’t feel as completely new as people just starting out, in year two or whatever. But you make a good point. It’s kinda got Big energy. (Laughs) You know, you’re ahead of me as a dude, not just in age, but in experience. So, I’m just like, Alright dude, you tell me what to not pop off at. I wanna make it. (Laughs)

DA: I’m going to ask this without being offensive: Do you feel like a 10-year-old man?

ZM: I so do not feel like a 10-year-old man. Definitely not. (Laughs) I mean, if I smoke enough weed I might start feeling like that–I’m not gonna lie; all of my colors are gonna start to come out. 

The trans experience is like… I crave the day that it’s normalized and that people accept that you’ve got to just talk to each of us on our own terms, one at a time, because no one’s a monolith. I think that’s what really rocks people’s consciousness. It’s so not a monolith. How I grew up is not like how anyone else grew up, not even in the trans experience. You can’t compare two trans people. That’s like comparing two 20 year olds or 30 year olds or 40 year olds. It’s not gonna fly. The nuance is just, like, so very personal and specific.