Creating Queer Community Grantees (2015)

 

Two nights of provocative performance by queer and trans artists of color! From the Third World Student strikes to LA Riots to Black Lives Matter movement, we examine spaces of separation and solidarity among communities of color. How do we build solidarity amidst the deadliness of anti-Black racism? How do we carve out space for all of our stories and complexities? Let us build fierce alliances, cracking open artistic freedom and raising up our collective voices! Macho Menos is a Latino queer slang play on the common Spanish phrase “mas o menos” which translates to “more or less”. This slang is used by Gay Latino men to claim their Queerness but to retain their machismo. The Macho Menos exhibition dissects and expands this term in order to examine the larger, complicated connections between queerness and machismo in Latino communities. Since birth Latinos have been taught to think in binary when it comes to gender. We cannot escape the masculine and feminine because the Spanish language is gendered.
The Q-Sides is a photography exhibition that re-imagines queerness within lowrider culture through the re-staged, re-interpreted East Side Story LP album covers, a popular vinyl collection of soul oldies that is a soundtrack to lowrider culture. The photographs on each of the original album covers show a Latino homeboy with his posing with his ride, his lady or with his homies. A LESBIAN’S GUIDE TO SELF CARE! is a comedic, feminist, crystal laden, bath house soaked, astrologically drunken hero-journey. In Kat Marie Yoas’ latest one-woman show, she finds the road to wellness is under construction and bumpy at best. She is a Midwestern working class lady who believes she is clueless and seeks to find herself in the uncharted landscape of San Francisco woo. She travels from seeking psychic dating services to healing grief with a massage to a tarot wielding cabaret singer to the perils of simply being a wild woman in the world.
The de la Riva’s convene superstar Agents of Creative Change, artists/activists/educators & you, for a multimedia event weaving together issues from their film (Queer Latina/o identity, health/wellness and dis-ease, from “Gay cancer” to the modern epidemic of cancer in communities of color) to discuss strategies for healing ourselves, our communities and the earth. A screening of sequences of ME, and Mr. MAURI: Turning Poison into Medicine with cast, crew & editor Augie Robles, poetry, lively discussion and feasting! Roots in Resilience is a project that focuses on how people continue to exist here in Bayview Hunter’s Point; this project sees resilience as how people live, how they heal, how they recognize the intergenerational traumas to heal from and the blessings to thrive on. These are the things communities and city planning should be focusing on if we hope to end many cycles of displacement. The project features the stories of young filmmakers of color where they share how they’re still here.
In its third year, Still Here takes an intergenerational leap revisiting the AIDS epidemic in San Francisco through the lens of elders surviving on the front lines who join young people raised with the crisis as the backdrop to their childhoods. No Tears for Creatures of the Night: Inspired by the life and work of legendary artist and activist Will Munro (1975-2010), Vacant Closet Collective brings you an evening of queer punk film and visual art. The short film program features Will Munro’s 8mm films “You’ll Dance to Anything” and “Rebels Rule”, the artist profile “Will Munro’s Dirty Load”, and Wrik Meads “Filth”.
Y’all Come Back: Think the South is only about Republicans, sweet tea and fried food? Well, bless your heart. Experience the real queer Dirty South as artists explore our identities and stories of our migration to and from the U.S. South. Through performance events and a visual art exhibition, we draw attention to catalysts of migration and question the meaning of Home. We also point out our impact on the local communities we leave behind and move to, such as displacement in urban hubs like San Francisco. Body of Work is a multi-media performance show exploring queerness, sexuality, disability, chronic illness, and the question: “How do you have a body?” Seasoned disabled queer cultural workers join forces with emerging disabled queer cultural workers across multiple disciplines. This year’s cast includes queer, trans, and non-binary writers, dancers, film-makers, and performance artists, whose genres and passions span from the pornographic to the academic and back again.
Before Internet dating and hookup apps, The Handkerchief Code was largely used by gay men in the 1970’s to distinguish sexual preferences and fetishes in gay clubs and on the streets of places like San Francisco and New York. In Hanky Code: The Movie, Periwinkle Cinema, San Francisco’s queer experimental film collective brings Queer and Trans* filmmakers across a spectrum of genres, styles, genders, and locations to dissect the code in this epic anthology feature of more than 15 short films! Black Don’t Crack is a musical-theatre production using humor, drama, and interdisciplinary performance to investigate the revolutionary – and sometimes painful – ways Queer Black Artists work together to heal themselves and their communities of internalized oppression and trauma.
For Sizakele is a soul-stirring, lyrically beautiful novel that addresses queer African gender, transcontinental identity, inter-partner violence and how we love as the ultimate illuminator of who we are. This dynamic event features a powerful, performative excerpt of the novel, followed by an engaging talk back that will invite the exploration of issues of Queer African love, sexuality and activism. “Pants, The Musical” romps through a lesbian life from age 3 to 83. She marches with great bravado and spirit, believing herself to be limitless. We’re with her during her loves and losses in this crazy life. Ellie, our protagonist, is played by 7 different actors as she goes through puberty and matures into her senior years
After nine glorious and grueling years of touring, production, visioning the fantastic, and nurturing community, we are writing today to share some huge news. This June, Mangos With Chili will begin a wind down year, and stop operating in June 2016.