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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
https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Sins-Invalid-We-Love-Like-Barnacles-poster-by-Micah-Bazant.jpg 950 981 C Q https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/QCC-Logo-Updated.png C Q2021-05-27 18:33:362021-06-18 19:07:34We Love Like Barnacles: Crip Lives in Climate Chaos, encore performance

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
https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/QAF-customink.png 400 403 C Q https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/QCC-Logo-Updated.png C Q2021-05-27 05:47:392021-05-27 06:11:54Queer AF & Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center proudly presents: Radical Joy

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
https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/NAQF-WEB-NICE-MARCH-30.jpg 1200 1500 C Q https://queerculturalcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/QCC-Logo-Updated.png C Q2021-05-25 03:31:042021-05-25 04:16:38The Future is Queer Country
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What's one thing you're excited for with your art What's one thing you're excited for with your art this year? Starting a poetry practice? Leveling up your circus act? Trying a new medium? Share one thing you're excited for with us!

This year may throw a lot at us as a community, and that just makes queer and trans art all the more important. We know we're excited to see what our incredibly creative community will create this year!
#QueerArt #TransArt
Did you know QCC's work extends way beyond just th Did you know QCC's work extends way beyond just the National Queer Arts Festival. Our cultural incubator program has provided administrative and fundraising support to dozens of QTBIPOC and LGBTQ2S+ arts organizations over our three decades of protecting queer arts. This has included helping organizations like BAAITS, Sean Dorsey Dance, and QWOCMAP become thriving arts organizations of their own.
#QueerArt #TransArt #QueerArtisQueerJoy #TransArtsisTransJoy
It's been a challenging year, and QCC's response w It's been a challenging year, and QCC's response was just to spread more QTBIPOC art and joy! Huge thanks to all who made it happen, from the artists on our stages to every donor and every single person who shows up for the art made by our amazing community.

We're entering into 2026 with excitement and a deep commitment to our work of shielding and supporting queer and trans art. Wishing each of you a beautiful new year's eve and a brilliant start to your new year!
Queer art is a lifeline. Every donation to QCC pro Queer art is a lifeline. Every donation to QCC protects our present and secures our future. Shield queer art. Donate today. givebutter.com/QCC2025
It's been a busy year for QCC as we continue to wo It's been a busy year for QCC as we continue to work hard to protect QTBIPOC arts and artists in an environment of increasing censorship and erasure. Just this year, we supported more than 210 artists through our and our incubated organizations' projects, disbursed more than $60k in direct financial support to artists, incubated 11 LGBTQ+ arts organizations, and produced six unique QTBIPOC cultural events.

We're dedicated to sustaining our movement through trans and queer arts and culture, and we've got some great plans for next year! Help us do this important work by donating to our end of year campaign at givebutter.com/QCC2025
QCC has been serving Bay Area LGBTQ+ artists for m QCC has been serving Bay Area LGBTQ+ artists for more than three decades, and we need your help to serve for three more. Help us sustain our essential artists development and cultural production programs by making a donation as part of our year-end campaign.

Link to donate in our bio!
Enjoy some clips from Melissa Charles' performance Enjoy some clips from Melissa Charles' performance at this fall's National Queer Arts Festival's Emerging Artists Showcase. Melissa was part of our Creating Queer Communities artists development program and crafted this original piece to share with the community.
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Some more about the piece from the artist:
Centering around themes of her debut collection, love poems about no one, Melissa will be presenting an embodied political meditation and reflection on r/evoltionary love, aiming to invite the audience into her internal monologue and understanding of what it looks like to love and how it feels to be in love — where love is, in fact, enough. the audience will be invited to engage as active participants and learners in their own understandings of love, r/evolution and anti-imperialist/anti-capitalist/anti-colonial violence in a performance that is meant to activate, inspire and highlight the contradictions of life which we all maneuver. they will experience poetic sounds, somatic/meditative practices and political education.

For those who are engaged (or wanting to engage) as activists and organizers, she is hoping to uplift the message that in these spaces of material r/evolution and militant organizing, it is valuable to be able to lean into our softness, imagination and the parts of ourselves that may be tender and a little idealistic…that parts that some may deem naive or unrealistic. and in those parts, also hopes to inspire folks to also find that the love which anchors them can also serve as a catalyst for material change and tangible dismantlings of the oppressive forces which have shaped the society we exist in on a day to day for much longer than we should be willing to tolerate without moving into some kind of bold and meaningful action.
There's still a week left to submit your art to be There's still a week left to submit your art to be the key art for 2026's National Queer Arts Festival. This means you would have your art featured on QCC's posters, flyers, and website for the event! Plus, you get a $500 stipend! Learn more and apply through the link in our bio.

This next year's festival theme is "Magic Mirror: Everything is Everything" and all artwork, new or already having been exhibited, reflective of this theme is welcome. This is a great opportunity to get some exposure and have your art bring trans and queer joy to our communities! Application is through a simple form and is due by midnight on December 15th.
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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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