NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL 2013

16th Annual

Director’s Welcome
Welcome to the 2013 National Queer Arts Festival

Zeitgeist

Zeitgeist is a marvelous German word that means the Spirit of the Time. In our case, we asked visual and performing artists to either imagine what people looking back at Queer Date 2013 would feel were the unique spirits of this time; or to look back in history and choose queer movements/spirits from those epochs and re-define them.

Everything from the perception of body & gender in performance & circus and styles of burlesque to examining privilege, immigration, post-traumatic stress, ageism, sexism, ecology, and racism are gracing our stages and gallery walls and, as usual, in new and queer ways. You’ll laugh and gasp and get all hot & bothered where you least expect to!

We celebrate who we are and who we want to become—and as always, we start the conversation with the arts.

Please join us and support our artists and queer artists everywhere!

Pamela Peniston, Artistic Director

CONNECT

QUEER INSTAGRAM

SHOWS

Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

ABOUT NQAF 2013

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Welcome to the 2013 National Queer Arts Festival Zeitgeist Zeitgeist is a marvelous German word that means the Spirit of the Time.  In our case, we asked visual and performing artists to either imagine what people looking back at Queer…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Queer Rebels 2013

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Back by popular demand, Queer Rebels presents the Harlem Renaissance – provocative performance and films. From Langston’s dreams deferred, to La Bentley’s gender bending Blues, we celebrate traditions of dissent and Queer Black…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

PRIDE 2013

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June 30 SF Pride Parade 43rd SF Pride Celebration: Embrace, Encourage, Empower San Francisco Civic Center June 29, 12pm-6pm Celebration at Civic Center June 30,  11am-Parade and Celebration With over 200 parade contingents, 300…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Dyke March 2013

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If history is bound to repeat itself, then we are right on schedule.  We are living in extraordinary times and building on the progress of those who came before us; women who moved from the kitchen to the workplace, from child rearing to…
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Trans March 2013

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June 28 10th Annual San Francisco Trans March Dolores Park, 3pm-speakers & music; 6pm-march to Civic Center. The mission of the San Francisco Trans March is to inspire all trans and gender non-conforming people to realize a world…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Girl Talk 2013

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Now in its fifth year, Girl Talk is a critically acclaimed multi-media performance show promoting dialogue about relationships of all kinds between queer transgender women, queer cisgender women, and genderqueer people. Queer cis women,…
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Hick

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Crackpot Crones Inc. Presents HICK:  A Love Story. Written by Terry Baum and Pat Bond. Performed by Terry Baum. Directed by Bobbi Ausubel. Part of The Garage AIRspace residency program for queer performance. Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s…
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Discendants

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Dissent meets descendants in this not your average sit-down show! Experience Frequency, Resonance & Memory as audience weaves  through  a  series  of  performance  installations that include dance, spoken word, textile art,…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

COWBOYS & ANGELS

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COWBOYS & ANGELS:
 Tom Orr Sings The George Michael Songbook 
with The Tom Shaw Quartet. Produced by Tomorrow! Productions. San Francisco musical comedy cabaret sensation Tom Orr pays tribute to one of contemporary pop music’s…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Queering Mythologies

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Queering Mythologies is of profound relevance to the current climate of violence against queers worldwide. This project proposes that we re-imagine our histories and therefore our futures so as to combat the material and spiritual effects…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Unfiltered Voice: A Generation of Visibility

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What we’re lacking in representation on TV, lesbian web series producers are making up for on the web.  No doubt the future of video is online and there are now more than a few dozen lesbian web series that are rockin’ audiences online. …
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Creating Queer Community 2013

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This year, QCC will invite 30 artists and ensembles who attended this initial session to participate in two 6-hour intensive artistic program planning and grantwriting workshops. QCC will subsequently award commissions between $250 and $1000…
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White Lies

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White Lies brings humor and hope to conversations about race and racism in the United States through music, dance, film and theater blended together in a multimedia performance that will leave you inspired to think, learn, discuss, and act.…
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Snapshot Poetics Now

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Inspired by Ginsberg’s collection of candid photographs with eccentric handwritten captions about his cohort of beat writers, lovers, and artists, Qcc and CJM invited 6 bay area artists and scholars to create a live performance event in…
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Love, Humiliation & Karaoke

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Directed by W. Kamau Bell. Enzo really does not want to end up cut into little pieces and deposited on the side of the highway.  Yet he’s risking just that by driving 600 miles to meet SanDiegoDavid, a complete stranger he met online.…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Queerlesque

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This Was Queerlesque!  is an intergenerational burlesque & cabaret show that explores the queer histories of burlesque/exotic dance. Featuring performances from burlesque legends like Holiday O’Hara and Isis Starr as well as new work…
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Frameline 37

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Frameline37 – Films Bring Us Together! The 37th San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival returns June 20-30, 2013. More info and tickets: www.frameline.org
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

RadarSuperstar 2013

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Celebrate 10 years of killer queer lit programming at RADAR Superstar – RADAR’s 10th Birthday Party! With readings by Thomas McBee, writer of the Self-Made Man column on The Rumpus and writer for Salon, Vice and many other sites, tangible…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Sugar in Our Blood

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Ramekon O’Arwisters’ exhibition, Sugar In Our Blood, is an autobiographical exploration of sexual stereotypes in the LGBTIQA and African-American communities. Folk-art traditions and techniques are physical stand-ins for race, sexuality,…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

La Rosa Mixtape

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Borders and Freedom. Imaginations and Reality. La Rosa Mixtape is a night of short films and performances on the journeys and migrations of queer diasporas. Featuring films from all over and performances by local Bay Area drag artists, La…
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Fresh Meat Festival

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Outrageously popular, artistically outstanding and always delicious! The FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL is the nation’s premiere transgender and queer performance festival. Award-winning trailblazers and national LGBT art-stars perform in three programs…
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Strange Bedfellows

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Strange Bedfellows is a visual art exhibition exploring collaborative practice in historical and contemporary and queer art.  This interactive panel discussion, moderated by curator, Amy Cancelmo, brings together several of the exhibiting…
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GUAVA

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GUAVA is a multi-media performance piece that addresses queer African sexuality and how immigration and geographic location impact it. GUAVA documents stories that are often ignored and marginalized and utilizes art to share those stories…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Stranger Lover Dreamer

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This evening of dance by Shaunna Vella, Rogelio Lopez, Elizebeth Randall and Andrew Merrell exposes the complex layers of identity, gender expression, and vulnerability through risk taking physicality and emotional subjectivity. We are seeking…
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Zeitgeist – Curator’s Walkthrough

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Revisit this wonderful exhibition with a selection of the curators and the artists who are defining the spirits of times. Come celebrate the spirit of our time with spirits and snacks and a market you won’t believe at the opening of…
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Bitter Queen

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Bitter Queen is a new physical theatre work that walks the borders between contemporary dance, inter-mediated performance and installation. The viewer is immersed into a debauched cocktail party circa 1969 that quickly dissolves into byzantine…
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QWoCFF

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The 9th annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival premieres an unprecedented 55 short films in 5 screening programs.  The Festival Focus includes a Featured Screening that explores culture, tradition and activism, from the waves of feminism…
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Queeriosity

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Queeriosity is a literary arts and performance event that creates a safe space for LBGTQ youth to speak their truths without having to conform to the ideals of others, or pander to limited mainstream understanding of “Queerness.”  Queeriosity…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Sugar

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Ramekon O’Arwisters’ exhibition, Sugar In Our Blood, is an autobiographical exploration of sexual stereotypes in the LGBTIQA and African-American communities. Folk-art traditions and techniques are physical stand-ins for race, sexuality,…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Earthy

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When two, queer San Francisco women lovers discover more about the global environmental crisis, they see red and go green. Beth Stephens, a sassy butch artist professor, and Annie Sprinkle, a high femme ex-porn star and sexologist, join…
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Still Here

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What does it mean to grow up in San Francisco, to come out, to negotiate home, self, identity, family, loss, and love in a city widely perceived as a gay mecca? Still Here presents new work by artists raised in San Francisco during the…
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FREE

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Just how free can we get? How do we get there? FREE explores the ways Two Spirit, trans* and queer people of color have fought for justice on our own terms throughout history. We’ll time travel, visiting with ancestors and future descendants…
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Stories of Queer Diaspora

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Join us in celebrating how Queer im/migrant and 1st/2nd generation folks unapologetically navigate their bodies, gender, culture, sexuality, and history through a night of intergenerational performance art, dance, music, mixed media, and…
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Bollywood Divas

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An evening of satire, comedy, dance and drop-down drag Bollywood ‘ishtyle’!! In Kareem Khubchandani’s Lessons In Drag, Professor Lawhore Vagistan, a drag queen attempting to make it on the Bollywood Screen, educates her classroom…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Shafted: The Blaqxploitation Project

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Itz 1970s San Francisco. In a hood bulldozed by “urban renewal,” an intergenerational, multigendered, pansexual gang of badasses – a rainbow of Blackness! – bands together to raise CLUB MYSTIQUE from the rubble of gentrification.…
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Dance to the Radio

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A person has to admit they’ve hit bottom when they search for life’s meanings in today’s shitty pop songs.  But that’s exactly what we’ve asked ten Queer artists to do!  There’s always that one song on the radio that seems…
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Show Yourself

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With the advent of digital photography, images have become ubiquitous. So how does a photographer distinguish himself? How do you make a portrait sing? And where is the line between photography and art? June 7 Show Yourself Exhibition…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

The Fairoaks Project

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Frank Melleno’s Polaroid photography captured an extraordinary glimpse into pre-AIDS gay sexual culture. Melleno was part-owner and night manager of The Fairoaks Hotel, a unique San Francisco bathhouse operating from 1977 to 1979.  His…
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Dear Mammaries

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Dear Mammaries is a group exhibition featuring interactive sculptural and installation based works that address the artists’ unique current or past relationships with their breasts.  In this unique body of work a diverse range of artists…
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Remembering Tede Mathews

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Remembering Tede Mathews is a literary event honoring the life and legacy of the beloved Bay Area poet, performer, and activist, featuring readings and recollections from people who knew him, including a number of writers who were part of…
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I AM A MAN

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Bay Area performance artist, poet, dancer, actor and activist Dazié Rustin Grego returns to the stage to offer audiences I AM A MAN, an exploration of gender expectations and masculinity. This new original work is Grego’s protest response…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Radar SuperStar

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Celebrate 10 years of killer queer lit programming at RADAR Superstar – RADAR’s 10th Birthday Party! With readings by Thomas McBee, writer of the Self-Made Man column on The Rumpus and writer for Salon, Vice and many other sites, tangible…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

The Camouflage Closet

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The Camouflage Closet is a digital documentary project with live original music that explores how LGBT veterans have been affected by trauma and mental health issues. The video footage was created and inspired by LGBT veterans themselves,…
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Transparent Trap with Dynasty Handbag

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Dynasty Handbag returns to her old stomping grounds to bring you the San Francisco premier of video work Eternal Quadrangle and new live performance work, including Control Top, a mutilated reworking and vast extended remix of the 80‘s…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Zeitgeist Exhibition

  Come celebrate the spirit of our time with spirits and snacks and a market you won’t believe at the opening of the visual arts exhibit and the festival! In the midst of the opening, Qcc will host a Zeitgeist market with items…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Zeitgeist Exhibition – 2013

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Zeitgeist Exhibition June 1 - 29, 2013 SOMArts Cultural Center Gallery, San Francisco Scholars have long maintained that each era has a unique spirit, a nature or climate that sets it apart from all other epochs. In German, such a spirit…

The News, 2013

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The News is the new place to see fresh, queer performance by Bay Area artists. On the first Tuesday of each month The News will spotlight performance pieces, experiments, and works in progress by pre-selected solo artists, groups, or…
Five queer people in glittery outfits posed in circus gear

Topsy-Turvy 2013

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A one-of-a-kind event, Topsy-Turvy: A Queer Circus Extravaganza features mesmerizing circus artists from across the country. Spin your world upside-down with awe-inspiring aerialists, side-splitting antics, jaw-dropping entertainment, and…

2013 QCC STAFF

Pamela Peniston, Artistic Director
Kevin Seaman, General Manager
Rudy Lemcke, Communications Director
Jeff Jones, Financial Director
Sarah Guerra, Production Manager
LaVette Virden, Finance Manager
DENDESIGN, Graphic Design
PS Print, Festival Printing

ZEITGEIST CURATORS
Josh Faught
Jacqueline Francis
Jordy Jones
Rudy Lemcke
Matt McKinley, Exhibit Designer
Pamela Peniston
Tina Takemoto

Amanda N. Simons, Exhibit Coordinator
Carter Steinmann, Zeitgeist & Festival Intern

BOARD

Tina Takemoto, President
Blackberri
Cheryl Dunye
Jacqueline Francis
Jeff Jones
Jordy Jones
Juba Kalamka
Rudy Lemcke
Mia Nakano
Pamela Peniston

Advisory Member
Dr. Marcy Adelman

QCC CONTACT

Queer Cultural Center
934 Brannan Street
SF, CA 94103

Executive Director, Pamela Peniston