Border Out 2008
June 12, 2008
BORDER OUT
Curator-Trilce Santana
SomArts
7:30pm
Tickets $8-$15 Sliding Scale
Photo by Leilani Nisperos
BORDER OUT is a collaborative of Bay Area-based LGBT immigrants. Through spoken word, music, theater, and comedy, artists explore where migration and queerness intersect and redefine the meaning of home. Featuring Alicia Kester, Amber Field, Michelle Alcedo, Ali Mafi and many many more!
Artists/Performers:
Michelle Alcedo As a queer Pinay immigrant filmmaker, Michelle believes in creating social change through presenting unique and personal stories from an “other” perspective, to reduce isolation within and between communities. Currently, Michelle works with openhouse, a nonprofit helping to connect LGBT seniors with the services, community and housing they need to live independently and well in San Francisco.
Malaya Arevalo is a Bay Area poet and activist. Currently living in San Jose, Malaya works in HIV prevention at Asian Americans for Community Involvement and does community organizing with FOCUS-Silicon Valley.
Amber Field is a singer, musician, performance artist, and filmmaker who believes we are the change. She devotes a majority of her creative energy to transracial adoption and queer issues. Amber studied classical Indian music at Visva Bharati University, India, and specializes in world instruments including tabla, esraj, riq, didgeridoo, and djembe. She performs one-woman shows and group events in kirtan (Indian devotional chanting) and gospel around the Bay Area
Alicia Kester is a queer writer and performer who lives in the bay area. Her writing has appeared in the Lambda Book Report and Desire In Transition. She has performed from San Francisco to Chicago primarily as a dancer and poet. Her family is from Nigeria and Louisiana. She’s currently working on a novel.
Rosa Los Santos came to Oakland in 2001 from her birthplace in Lima, Peru and has been singing Latin and especially Afro-Peruvian music professionally for 15 years. She performs regularly with Peruvian groups ‘De Rompe y Raja’, and ‘Nostalgia’. Rosa sings a wide repertoire of Latin music, plays guitar and cajon –a percussion instrument of Afro-Peruvian origin. She is also an accomplished performer of the Afro-Peruvian competitive dance form zapateo. Rosa has performed at Bay Area venues such as La Pena Cultural Center, La Furia Chalaca, ODC Theater, Julia Morgan Theater, Stanford University and UCSF. She also has captivated audiences in Massachusetts, Utah, and at the Michigan Women’s Music Festival.
Ali Mafi was born in Tehran, Iran and raised in San Francisco. At only 22, he is part of a new generation of San Francisco comedians. He has performed all over the Bay Area and has been chronicled on CNN for his work with the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour. Ali took third place in the Rooster T. Feathers Comedy Competition and has opened for Mo’Nique at The San Jose Improv and for Marga Gomez this past New Year’s Eve at The Victoria Theatre. www.alimafi.com
Maiana Minahal is a queer Filipina American poet. She received her MFA from Antioch University, has published in numerous anthologies, and has performed in the US and the Philippines. She was formerly Director of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley.
Trilce Santana is a queer Argentine activist who does not believe in borders.
Sottolin Weng is a first generation “hua cu” to the EEUU. An escapee of the ivory tower, this one is wary of the uniformed, but a sucker for Ebb and Sondheim musicals. Also recommended that you approach with chocolate, dark chocolate.
Ming Wong is a writer, performer, graphic designer, and chef. He grew up in Malaysia and Singapore, where he did very well on exams still controlled by the British while admiring plays and poems written by Americans. As a Buddhist, he believes that life is fabulous in all senses of the word. He has dreamed of America for a long time. He currently works part time as a law clerk at the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Border Out is co-sponsored by Mango and the National Center for Lesbian Rights