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NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL 2021

Since 1998, QCC has curated and produced 24 National Queer Arts Festivals (NQAF) that have featured more than 2,300 LGBTQ+ artists in over 920 different arts and cultural events. The festival has become a bay area cultural institution bringing to life hundreds of performances, visual arts exhibitions, literary readings and film screenings.

Our Creating Queer Community (CQC) program has commissioned over 400 LGBTQ+ artists to create, produce, commission, promote, and document original works examining LGBTQ+ social justice and civil rights issues that debut at the National Queer Arts Festival.

THE FUTURE IS…

This year’s theme, The Future is… allows us to collectively embody the future. This year’s festival honors QCC artists and our art as it is today, while also opening the door to imagination and manifestation of the future through the eyes of the artists centering Queer, Trans, gender nonconforming, Intersex, Two-spirit, Black, Indigenous, people of color (QTI2SBIPOC artists) and giving voice to the truth we know – the future is already here, an the future is us. 

Over the years, our Creating Queer Community (CQC) program has commissioned over 400 LGBTQ+ artists to create, produce, comission, promote, and document original works examining LGBTQ+ social justice and civil rights issues that debut at the National Queer Arts Festival.

-Natalia Vigil, Executive Director

Buy Festival Pass

NQAF 2021 CATALOG

This year, all elements of the festival are virtual/digital including our catalog.

Check out the NQAF interactive catalog to see the details of all 25 festival shows! You can click on links to find descriptions, ticket links, social media and more!

Download The Future Is… NQAF Interactive Catalog: NQAF_2021

SHOWS

Dwayne Calizo – The Future Is Free

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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Still Here Presents, Mission Pride: An Evening with Vero Majano

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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We Love Like Barnacles: Crip Lives in Climate Chaos, encore performance

NQAF, NQAF 2021, Uncategorized
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BIPOC Trans Pride & Resilience

NQAF, NQAF 2021, Uncategorized
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Queer AF & Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center proudly presents: Radical Joy

NQAF, NQAF 2021, Uncategorized
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The 45th

NQAF, NQAF 2021, Uncategorized
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The Song Sanctuary

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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Queer Rebel Fest Image

Queer Rebels Fest 2021 Juneteenth Edition: Say It Loud

NQAF, NQAF 2021
https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/QRFest_20216-1-scaled.jpg 1978 2560 C Q https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/QCC-Logo-Updated.png C Q2021-05-27 03:38:412021-05-27 03:38:41Queer Rebels Fest 2021 Juneteenth Edition: Say It Loud
Fresh Meat Artists

20th Anniversary FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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Central American Unicorns in Space! A Queer Digital Cabaret

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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So The Darkness May Glitter: Queer & Trans Arab Futures

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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Tiny Baruch and His Amazing Friends!

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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Crossbones on My Life

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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An evening with Skywatchers and Oysterknife

NQAF, NQAF 2021
https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2020-by-Chani_Bockwinkel-scaled.jpg 1710 2560 C Q https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/QCC-Logo-Updated.png C Q2021-05-25 04:09:482021-05-25 04:11:13An evening with Skywatchers and Oysterknife
Future Is Queer Country

The Future is Queer Country

NQAF, NQAF 2021
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MAJOR FUNDERS

 

FUNDERS, SPONSORS, VENUES

Somarts Cultural Center logo Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center Logo African American Art and Culture Complex logo
brava theater center logo

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QUEER INSTAGRAM

TONIGHT. Pleasure in the Storm is bringing you an TONIGHT. Pleasure in the Storm is bringing you an exuberant finale of rhythm and joy. Come celebrate your own and our community's beauty and brilliance at Magical Realism.

Magical Realism: Queer Caribbean Sounds is the final night of the Spring 2025 National Queer Arts Festival—and it’s everything we’ve been building toward. Join us for a night of music, movement, and collective healing as Esotérica Tropical and Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba ensemble Batey Tambó lead us in ritual and rhythm, followed by a reggaeton dance party with DJ Kayaté.

This is the climax of Pleasure in the Storm—a space to sweat it out, dance it in, and remember what it feels like to be held in joy, movement, and community.

TONIGHT – Friday, June 13 | 7–10 PM
SOMArts – 934 Brannan St, San Francisco
Tickets in bio

Come be the joy. Come be the thunder. Come be the pleasure in the storm.

#MagicalRealism #NQAF2025 #PleasureInTheStorm #NationalQueerArtsFestival #QueerCaribbeanSounds
TOMORROW NIGHT! The dance floor is calling with pl TOMORROW NIGHT! The dance floor is calling with pleasure, and this is your last chance to answer.

Magical Realism: Queer Caribbean Sounds is the final night of the Spring 2025 National Queer Arts Festival, and it’s going to be unforgettable. Come experience an evening of ritual, rhythm, and release—led by Esotérica Tropical, the soul-shaking Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba ensemble Batey Tambó, and reggaeton heat from DJ Kayaté.

This is more than a party. It’s a healing pulse. A collective exhale. A celebration of trans and queer joy at its most powerful.

Let your body carry the memory.
Let the rhythm wash it clean.

Friday, June 13 | 7–10 PM
SOMArts – 934 Brannan St, San Francisco
NOTAFLOF – Tickets in bio
Bring your filled out Festival Passport for a special prize!

Let’s close this season the way we started it—together. You are the pleasure in the storm.

#MagicalRealism #NQAF2025 #PleasureInTheStorm #NationalQueerArtsFestival #ClosingNight #QueerDanceMagic
You are dancing with community—waves of pleasure You are dancing with community—waves of pleasure and rhythm washing over you, your spirit and soul feeling refreshed and rejuvenated.
This is the Magical Realism: Queer Caribbean Sounds you've been needing.

Join us for the final night of the Spring 2025 National Queer Arts Festival—a closing celebration of community connection, Caribbean rhythm, and collective release.

Led by Esotérica Tropical and the powerful Afro-Puerto Rican Bomba ensemble Batey Tambó, the evening opens with performance and ritual, then flows into a reggaeton dance party with DJ Kayaté. As the closer for the "Pleasure in the Storm" NQAF, you can expect the joy to be overflowing.

Join us for a night that reminds us how music is our storm shelter, movement is our medicine, and healing hits different when we do it together.

Friday, June 13 | 7–10 PM
SOMArts – 934 Brannan St, San Francisco
NOTAFLOF – Tickets in bio
Bring your completed Festival Passport to be in the running for a special surprise!

Come close this season in celebration. Let the rhythms carry your joy. Let your body remember: we are still here, and we are the pleasure in the storm.

#MagicalRealism #NQAF2025 #PleasureInTheStorm #QueerCaribbeanSounds #NationalQueerArtsFestival #QueerDanceMagic
🌿✨ An invitation to soften. To listen. To be 🌿✨ An invitation to soften. To listen. To be held. ✨🌿

On Sunday, June 8, step into the stillness with Unfolding—an immersive sound experience rooted in Black queer love, meditative poetry, and the power of presence.

Created by Lyn Patterson (@poetryntings) in collaboration with @riannasamone, Unfolding is part of Pleasure in the Storm, the Spring 2025 National Queer Arts Festival. Two showings will take place at 6 PM and 7:30 PM at the Gaines Gallery & Rooftop (1740 Telegraph Ave, Oakland).

Through soundscapes, poetry, and revolutionary Black queer love, a sacred space is being created for you to be part of. A moment to return to your breath, your body, and the knowing that you are worthy of tenderness. Join QCC for the Unfolding.

Come gently.
Come fully.
Come as you are.

ASL provided. NOTAFLOF. Tickets available via link in bio.

#Unfolding #NQAF2025 #PleasureInTheStorm #BlackQueerLove #QueerArtsFestival
The New World Coming is here TONIGHT from 6-9 pm a The New World Coming is here TONIGHT from 6-9 pm at Cone Shape Top in Oakland. Part of Pleasure in the Storm, this year's National Queer Arts Festival, come experience the intersection of queer erotics and historical archives, where lust blurs into an expression of protection. 

Created by Tiara Amar (@tomatoluvr3), New World Coming is a gallery space that builds out an intertwined history of queer longing and anti-imperialist struggle - a struggle we are still enmeshed in our present. Readings will be outdoors. Don't miss the New World Coming - get your tickets through the link on our website or bio.

This show is created by Tiara Amar (they/them), a Bengali transdisciplinary artist, organizer, and curator born and raised on occupied Ohlone lands & based in Oakland. Their practice integrates writing with still & moving images and percussion.
#NationalQueerArtsFestival #PleasureintheStorm
UNFOLDING is a meditative journey of sound, poetry UNFOLDING is a meditative journey of sound, poetry, and presence—an immersive invitation into Black queer love, stillness, and sacred witnessing.

Part of the Spring 2025 National Queer Arts Festival, Unfolding is created by Lyn Patterson (@poetryntings) in collaboration with @riannasamone, and takes place on Sunday, June 8 with two intimate showings at 6 PM and 7:30 PM at Oakstop – Gaines Gallery & Rooftop (1740 Telegraph Ave, Oakland).

🌀 Let yourself unravel.
💫 Let your breath guide you.
🖤 Come to be seen—and held. 

Unfolding is a meditative journey through poetry, sound design, and storytelling—where stillness meets surrender, and sensuality meets solitude while being witnessed in community. This immersive sound experience honors Black queer love and the electric moment we allow ourselves to be seen—and held.

ASL interpretation will be provided. Tickets are NOTAFLOF. Festival Passports available on site. Link in bio to reserve your place in the Unfolding. 
#Unfolding #NationalQueerArtFestival
The New World you've been waiting for is coming in The New World you've been waiting for is coming in just a couple days with New World Coming on June 5th, 6-9 pm at Cone Shape Top in Oakland. Part of Pleasure in the Storm, this year's National Queer Arts Festival, this powerful experience is an exhibition/event that pulls from the archives to visualize queer erotics in revolutionary poetry from the 1980s - 1990s.

Created by Tiara Amar (@tomatoluvr3), New World Coming cherishes queer ancestors for their moments of longing and fantasy, where lust blurs into an expression of protection. Get your tickets through the link on our website or bio.

New World Coming finds solace in intergenerational delusion and recognizes this as a blueprint for resistance. The archives are our inheritance. This project seeks to make archival works more accessible through a gallery space that builds out an intertwined history of queer longing and anti-imperialist struggle.

This show is created by Tiara Amar (they/them), a Bengali transdisciplinary artist, organizer, and curator born and raised on occupied Ohlone lands & based in Oakland. Their practice integrates writing with still & moving images and percussion. Their work relies on distortions of truth and negotiation to explore the fantasy and magic embedded in the earthscapes in the Bay Area. It is built in archiving queer/trans life, with reverence for worldbuilders of the past and the blueprints they left us.
#NationalQueerArtsFestival #PleasureintheStorm
It's your last chance to apply for the Creating Qu It's your last chance to apply for the Creating Queer Communities Level Two cohort! This free opportunity both pays you to make art and gives you free cultural professional development opportunities. Applications are due tomorrow June 9th by midnight, so time to start working on them if you haven't already!

Over the last couple decades, dozens of artists have gone through QCC's Creating Queer Communities artist development program. Many have gone on to be prolific and successful artists still making art to this day. Just think - that could be you!

So if you've ever dreamed about taking your arts practices to the next level, mosey on over to our website to find out everything you want to know about this program, including hot to apply.
#CreatingQueerCommunities
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Link to: Overlooked Giants: A Parable of Queer Women of Color in The Arts Link to: Overlooked Giants: A Parable of Queer Women of Color in The Arts Overlooked Giants: A Parable of Queer Women of Color in The ArtsOverlooked Giants, A Parabale of Queer Women of Color Artists Link to: Queer Afro Latin Dance Festival Link to: Queer Afro Latin Dance Festival Flyer with queer dancers and artists for the Queer Afro Latin Dance FestivalQueer Afro Latin Dance Festival
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