NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL 2009

Director’s Statement
Welcome to the 12th National Queer Arts Festival
70 exhibitions and performances from May 31 – July 11, 2009
Presented by the Queer Cultural Center

This year’s theme is Threads. We celebrate Threads in our visual arts show, our fashion spectacular, San Francisco is Burning, and throughout the Festival’s performances and screenings.

Threads create fabric – literally and figuratively – the fabric of our many queer communities. Festival artists explore the threads that bind, mend and sometimes unravel in this spectacular fabric.

You are a vital part of this fabric: whether the warp or the woof, you will find yourself within this Festival. You’ll find events that reflect your own life stories or take a chance and explore someone else’s stories. Why not do both? We have stories in every artistic discipline presented by every kind of queer (and that’s a whole lotta queer!).

When you attend a Festival event, most of your ticket money goes directly to the artists.

So, in a sense, you are commissioning new queer art along with us. We at the Queer Cultural Center (Qcc) consider our audiences to be our producing partners.

The National Queer Arts Festival offers the best exchange rate in the country: your dollar brings you the most exciting, challenging arts you’ll see all year. Where else can you find our best emerging and established artists – live queers on stage! – for about the same price as a movie?

I look forward to seeing you at the Festival!

– Pamela S. Peniston, Artistic Director