Roger Montoya

Roger Evan Montoya was born to Jose Amado and Dorotea Montoya in Denver, Colorado, on February 3, 1961. He has three brothers and two sisters. At the age of seven, Montoya started formal training in gymnastics taking classes at the University of Denver. He attended Adams City High School before transferring to Westminster High School to join a gymnastics team. Though his parents struggled financially, they let Montoya be legally adopted by distant relatives who lived in the Westminster, Colorado area, in order to be able to enroll in the gymnastics program.[2] He remained involved in a competitive teams throughout his high school years and by the time he was 14, he went to the 1976 Summer Olympics training camp in Romania with Nadia Comăneci, using the money he had earned selling his paintings.[3] Eventually, it landed him a scholarship at the California State University, Long Beach. After three years at the university, Montoya was injured during a gymnastics competition where he had a concussion. He then decided to study visual arts and dance.[2] Around this time, he met choreographer Mary Jane Eisenberg who had just moved to the city after performing with the Louis Falco Dance Company in New York, and was a substitute teacher in one of his classes. Few months later, Montoya joined her dance company Shale in Los Angeles.[3] Montoya earned an associate degree from Long Beach City College.[4]

While still in college, Montoya appeared in two gay pornographic films, Spring Training (1985) and Hot Male Mechanics (1985) under the names Joe Savage and Eric Martinez. In 1984, he left Los Angeles with his boyfriend who was battling AIDS with the intention of building a house near his family home in New Mexico. After his boyfriend's death later that year, he moved to New York City, began taking classes at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and joined the David Parsons Dance Company. Montoya also tested positive for HIV antibodies in 1986 but continued to dance and focus on his art.[5] An injury to company member led to the substitution of Montoya joining Parsons program Friday in Royce Hall, UCLA.[6] After five years in New York City, he made a decision to put his dance career on hold and primarily focus on his health.[5]

In 1990, Montoya moved back to Velarde, New Mexico and began relearning painting by focusing on the New Mexico landscape. He got a grant from the University of New Mexico to teach gymnastics to local children. Between 1990 and 1995, more than 2,000 children enrolled in the program.[7] Approached by Nora Naranjo Morse, who had seen his landscapes at a crafts festival, Montoya submitted some figurative paintings to illustrate a children's book she had written. Given a short deadline, he completed eleven paintings in sixteen days and his illustrations were used in the book A First Clay Gathering (1994).[5]

In 1994, he decided to come out as HIV positive and in order to raise the topic with his neighbors, he invited his students and their parents to a special meeting. He spoke candidly about his condition and about how difficult it is to transmit HIV and assured his audience that he would not be teaching if he had any fear at all that he might be endangering his students. When Montoya was finished, the father of one student accused Montoya of infecting his family and took his child and stormed out. Several other students have dropped out of Montoya's class, but most have stayed.[5] In 1996, he and his mother, a veteran health care provider, started Española HELPS (HIV, Education, Longevity, Prevention, and Support), an HIV awareness organization.[7] Between 1998 and 2004, Montoya focused on painting, selling his paintings mostly at The Spanish Market, an annual market event held in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In 2002, he created an Arts in the Schools program bringing in local artists to public elementary schools, where he met his partner Salvador Ruiz-Esquivel.[8]

Montoya is openly gay. He came out to his family when he was sixteen. In 1994, he disclosed that he is HIV-positive. He had tested positive for HIV antibodies eight years earlier after his boyfriend's death and began anti-retroviral treatment. While he remained asymptomatic, he lost three partners to AIDS and assumed his own death was imminent. "I felt a strong, deep calling to come home to family to prepare to die," he said. He has since discontinued the use of AZT and has moved to natural alternatives included his own organically grown produce, vitamins, massage, Chinese herbs, colonic therapy and acupuncture.[5]

In 2007, Montoya met his long-time partner Salvador Ruiz-Esquivel while working on his Arts in the Schools program.[8]

• Roger Montoya at IMDb