Miami and Brooklyn-based and Venezuelan-born, Migguel Anggelo is a transdisciplinary performing artist, expressing himself through costume, musical composition, movement and theater work, aiming to straddle eras, genres and cultures. One of his first starring roles was in the Latin American touring production of Pinocchio. Anggelo; he went on to roles for stage and television, before traveling 
to Germany, studying voice at the Conservatory of Music in Cologne. On a visit to Venezuela, he tried out and won a role in the Latin American production of the Broadway musical Fame. After four and a half years of touring, he moved to Miami, eventually settling in New York to begin creating multidisciplinary performance works.
He has released two albums (Dónde Estará Matisse and La Casa Azul) and has been awarded residencies to develop new works at institutions such as MASS MoCA (North Adams, MA), Lincoln Center (New York City), the Miami Light Project (Miami, FL), the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts (Philadelphia, PA) and BRIC (Brooklyn, NY). Anggelo was named a 2020 New York Presenters Consortium resident artist as well as a 2019 Joe’s Pub Working Group resident and has been tapped to perform in festivals like the Public Theater’s Under the Radar, LPAC’s Rough Draft and Provincetown’s Afterglow. He has served as a cultural attaché, under the auspices of the U.S. State Department, in two separate 10-city tours of Russia.
Among many new projects, Anggelo is developing English with an Accent, a hybrid dance-theater work of original music that explores self-realization through the eyes of an anthropomorphized, immigrant caterpillar. English with an Accent plays at Lincoln Center’s Clark Studio Theatre, from Thursday, December 1 through Saturday, December 3. An album of the same name will be released on December 2.
NiteLife Exchange (NLE) asks Migguel Anggelo (MA) Six Questions:
NLE: You are Venezuelan by birth and early on demonstrated independence by taking ballet in a “macho” culture. When did you first realize that you needed to venture beyond your roots there?
MA: Even as a child, I always knew that I was born an artist. It was my mother’s idea that I needed to take ballet classes if I was going to become a performer—she wanted me to be a complete artist. My father was very homophobic and said, “I’m not taking him to ballet. That’s for faggots.” My mom told him that if he would not support her on this, she would divorce him.
From that time, I knew I needed to find another place to live where I could feel “at home,” where I could be my authentic self. My mother gave me strength to follow my dreams. I love my country, Venezuela, but I always knew that I needed to find a new home.
NLE: Your career path has been defined by what appears to be many happy coincidences. To what do you attribute these amazing turn of events?
MA: I believe in destiny and being open to new experiences—that has led me down many paths that I did not even know existed. For instance, when I moved to Germany, ran out of money, and was busking on the street for coins, I was discovered by a professor from the local Conservatory of Music who took me under his wing. He trained me to be a countertenor. 
Working in opera was never a dream of mine but it’s something I truly love. If I was not open to this experience, I would have never been exposed to the magic of that world. I am grateful for the opportunities that have presented themselves, and I have run through their open doors with a wide-open heart.
NLE: As a creative spirit with many talents, what artistic expression most defines who you are?
MA: I truly love all of the artistic disciplines that I am involved with—painting, singing, acting, dancing—but if I had to pick just one, it would be singing. Why? Because when I am singing, I can act out a full range of emotions and movements in just one song.
NLE: You’ve worked with the Mexican singer-songwriter Jamie Lozano, who also writes of his immigrant experience. Do you find similarities in your lives as immigrants? When did you first decide you wanted to become a citizen of the USA?
MA: Every immigrant has their own experience, of course, but I’m sure mi pana (this is how I call Jaime, a Venezuelan expression that means “my buddy”) and I have similarities. We are both people of two worlds. While we have created new families and homes in the United States, we each have one foot in our birth countries as well. We both miss our loved ones that we have left behind and the customs and tastes that we grew up with—but a drive to follow our bigger dreams is something we definitely both share.
My journey to become a citizen was a very long one. It took me about 16 years. I could have chosen to stay with green card status, but the truth is that I really wanted to feel like I was truly part of this wonderful country. Being a citizen, I now feel like I belong in this nation. I have rights like anyone else here has.
NLE: What does it mean to be a queer Latin-x individual, creatively and personally? What message do you most wish to give your audience?
MA: I never call myself a queer Latin-x individual. Being queer is not just about sexual or gender identities. In fact, I feel like my sexuality is not really a “concept.” I’m gay. I’m Latino, but I’m more than that.
Queer for for me, though, is also about thinking outside of the mainstream, 
especially in art. And for English with an Accent, the way that I conceived of creating this show is essentially queer in that regard—not conforming to the ways that art or live performance “should” be made.
I really hope that my audiences walk away from my shows realizing that we all share universal desires. Regardless of whether we are gay, straight, Latino, Martian or everything in between, we all want safety, happiness, love, and we all want to belong. That matters to everyone.
NLE: What drives you the most—as a person who sought to go beyond Venezuelan roots and as a creative?
MA: I needed to find a place where my imagination could run free, where I could share my dreams and my gifts—that was really hard to do in my beloved Venezuela because of the government, oppressive dictatorship, crime, lack of safety and a close-mindedness that ultimately felt like a jail cell. I feel very blessed to have found a safe home in the United States where my creativity is not just welcomed but fostered.
Portrait photos of Migguel Anggelo by Nico Iliev
Production photos of English with an Accent by Teresa Castracane
