This is a sponsored interview in partnership with Tecovas.
You know that red curly hair and big voice. It’s Erica Nix, and she’s “effervescence” personified. We caught up with the performance artist and body positive ambassador recently to talk about her work teaching aerobics under the name “Workout! With Erica Nix.”
What is your job?
“I do performance art, I do splash dance, I do zoom workout classes, I do events. Splash dance is like water aerobics, but it's outside of what normal people would think of about water aerobics, I would think. But it's super fun. It's pretty off the cuff. I tell lots of jokes. ”
Now, how did you get into this line of work? And what or who drew you into this work?
“Richard Simmons, of course, is my biggest inspiration. I also grew up doing workouts with my mom, with Jazzercise, and, of course, Jane Fonda.”
Why does your work matter to you?
“Well, community is the most important thing to me. I went to after school theater classes as a kid, but also I grew up in a suburb of Dallas, Texas, and my family always thought I was just the biggest weirdo, you know? I knew I was bi or whatever on some level, but I didn't know any queer people.
So when I got to Austin, I lived in the co-ops, and then I finally, like, finally dated my first woman, and really finally got into that queer community. I just never felt more at home, and I just want to keep that. And we know, as you get older, people move and things change.
And so that isn't something you can just do once and rely on forever. You have to continue feeding that and making safe places for people. And I'm also just continually reminded, right? Like sometimes just after a performance that I think is an everyday thing, like just a dance, a young queer person will tell me how important it was to them.”
