For Immediate Release Press contact: Elizabeth Pickens Ph: (573) 268-1659
May 5, 2009 E-mail: qccfestival@gmail.com


•Info: www.queerculturalcenter.org - 415-864-4124
•Schedule: www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest09/09QF_Indx.html
•Tickets: Prices range from 0 - $50. www.brownpapertickets.com or 800-838-3006
•Press Room (hi res photos): www.queerculturalcenter.org/Press

San Francisco, CA… The National Queer Arts Festival (NQAF), now celebrating its 12th year, is a month-long festival of music, dance, visual art, spoken word, poetry, comedy, theater, and film featuring over 400 artists in 70 events and over 100 performances in 18 venues throughout San Francisco. At the conclusion of this year’s festival, The Queer Cultural Center, the producer of The NQAF, will have showcased the work of nearly 2500 individual artists since its inception in 1998.

NQAF 2009 highlights include Threads, the visual arts opening followed by San Francisco is Burning! a benefit runway competition for fashion designers (June 7), Dorothy Allison in Testimonies, Chisme, Spilling the Tea (June 8), James St. James in RADAR SuperStar Reading (June 9), and Marga Gomez in Barely Legal Comedy: Marga & the Boys (June 26).

The Queer Cultural Center (Qcc), founded in 1993, is a multi-racial community-building organization that fosters the artistic, economic and cultural development of San Francisco’s LGBT community. Qcc implements its mission by operating programs commissioning and presenting queer artists, that promote the development of culturally diverse queer arts organizations and that document significant queer arts events taking place in San Francisco. By presenting, exhibiting, and screening queer artists’ work, Qcc contributes to the development of a multicultural perspective on the LGBT experience.

The theme of this year’s festival is Threads—Threads create the fabric of our many queer communities. Festival artists explore the threads that bind, mend and sometimes unravel this spectacular fabric. This includes the thread of the history; on the second wave of feminism (Risky Business) and the third wave of riot grrrl (Rebel Girl), street protest (Smash the Church, Into the Streets); on being “other” and outsider (Hazardous Waste Project, Translations, borderOUT, Girl Talk, TransForming Community, the Black & Tan Fantasy Festival and Mangos w/ Chili’s QPOCalypse Now!). Sample the endless variations of our incredible communities—all in one giant festival!

Download full catalog at http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Press/NQAF09.pdf

~See following pages for Listing of Events~


Thursday, May 7 @ 5pm
EPIC: Visualizing Heroes Within
Rico Reyes, Exhibition Curator
SOMArts Bay Gallery
Gallery Hours: Tue-Fri 2:00-7:00 pm; Sat. 1:00-5:00 pm
Free
A multi-media exhibition curated by Rico Reyes showcases queer Asian & Pacific Islander (API) artists opens May 7. Presented in association with Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center’s 12th Anniversary United States of Asian America Festival.

Thursday, May 14 @ 8pm
Show runs Thursdays – Saturdays, May 14 – June 6
Strings
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
$10-$15, www.brownpapertickets.com
Two brothers craft a play about fiddles and family demons. Is it memory or fantasy? Whose story is this? The connections they make surprise them both in Guerrilla Rep's world premiere by Terrence Beswick (hotshot); directed by John Caldon and featuring Juan Carlos De La Rosa and Michael Rodriguez.

Sunday, May 31 @ 6pm (reception)/ 7pm (program)
EPIC! The GAPA Men’s Chorus 20th Anniversary Concert
SOMArts
Free
Gay Asian Pacific Alliance helps kick off Gay Pride Month with EPIC! a performing arts showcase celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the GAPA Men’s Chorus. The Chorus starts off with classical pieces followed by Americana and Pop selections as well as a multi-lingual blend of songs in Vietnamese, Indonesian, Tagalog, Japanese and Mandarin. Presented in association with Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center’s 12th Anniversary United States of Asian America Festival.

Sunday, May 31 & Monday, June 1 @ 8pm
This Many People: The LGBT Seniors Project
The Garage
Theater
$10-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
AIRspace and OutLook Theater Project present excerpts of a play-in-progress focusing on issues of community and isolation in an aging LGBT population. The play is based upon personal histories of LGBT Seniors generated through collaboration with New Leaf and the Lavender Seniors.

Wednesday, June 3 @ 7pm – Potluck/7:30pm – Readings
Risky Business: Old Surfers of the Second Wave
LGBT Center – 4th Floor
Spoken Word/ Lit
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Old lesbian radicals don’t die, they just keep writing poems! Elana Dykewomon, Carla Trujillo, Reid Gomez and Jewelle Gomez read from new work and old, sing with Debbie Fier and talk about what makes a revolution---mostly sex and politics.

Wednesday June 3 & Thursday, June 4 @ 8pm
Formerly Known As… a mini-festival of art by male sex workers
The Center for Sex & Culture
Multidisciplinary
$10- $20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Army of Lovers presents two nights of art, video and performance by male sex workers by men who've worked in the sex industry. These programs will feature men of different ages and backgrounds, bringing together a group of guys who often operate in isolation from one another. You will hear true stories about hustling in Pershing Square in the 1940s, the kidnapping fantasies of professional masters and transguys pioneering new sex work markets! See cartoons and visual art! Hear original songs! See inexplicable performance art!

Thursday, June 4 @ 7pm (reception), 8pm (performance)
Nature is So Gay!
The Garage
Multidisciplinary
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Did you know black swans are adept at gay male parenting and koalas are one of the only species known for their lesbian tendencies? Beloved queer writers and visual artists, Ali Liebegott and Nicole J. Georges, showcase artwork and performance revealing the gay old times of the queer animal kingdom. Watch whales ride each other's dorsal fins for pleasure, and moustached tamarins finger their facial hair in this brilliant lecture and visual performance, complete with slides and sound. Liebegott and Georges will exhibit their visual art at The Garage. Join us for the opening reception before the show! The art will be available for purchase to make your home a queer animal sanctuary.

Friday, June 5 @ 7:30pm
Laye(Red)
SOMArts
Multidisciplinary
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Can a cute t-shirt fund the revolution? Thisway/Thatway messily explores the junction of consumerism and activism in this intermedia spectacle of fashion, movement, and video. With pop-cultural appropriation of Blackness and the legacy of cotton production under slavery, how do Black queer and trans folks imagine fashion as resistance? The consummate candy-fag, Thisway/Thatway (aka Stephanie Cooper) is an inter-media performance artist who enjoys the messy collision of glitter and theory.

Friday, June 5 & Saturday, June 6 @ 8pm
The Hazardous Waste Project: Sowing The Seeds of Love, Life, Lust and the Bomb
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
Theater/Performance
$12 - $20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Hazardous Waste Project explores how society marginalizes underground artists of color, POZ performers and danger they pose to the mainstream, small-mindedness and the status quo. The performance is set in an apocalyptic world in which saviors are a chanteuse, a punk rock duo, Humpty Dumpty and an elementary school teacher.

Friday, June 5 – Sunday, June 28 @ 8pm (Fri + Sat); 5pm (Sun)
Plus June 24 & June 25 @ 8pm
Dancing @ The Garage
The Garage
Dance
$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
The San Francisco Moving Men presents Dancing @ The Garage. Local choreographer Joe Landini presents an evening of athletic dancing, propulsive music and really cute boys. The SF Moving Men features contemporary dance with a queer sensibility, taking the viewer on a journey that celebrates the joy of pure movement, music and amazing dancers. Each performance will host a local non-profit that will be raising money for the LGBT community. For more information about the performances, please go to sfmovingmen.org.

Saturday, June 6 @ 7pm & 9:30pm
Rally the Troupes
SOMArts
Theater/Performance
$15-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Bay Area favorites are back for their 5th year of Rally the Troupes!! Drew Montana, former Transformer and founder of CHUBB has rounded up an eclectic mix of drag kings, queens, and burlesque artists from the Bay Area and beyond. These performers have a knack for nailing each song with innovative moves and messages. From the powerful presence of The Bromantics to the hysterical stylings of Lil Miss Hot Mess to the always brilliant stagings of Thatway, Rally the Troupes 5 is an event you won’t want to miss!

Saturday, June 6 @ 7pm
bi-licious
LGBT Center 2nd Floor
Performance
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
bi-licious returns to the National Queer Arts Festival to showcase bisexual artists, performers and activists through a playful mix of serious issues and entertainment. Enjoy a succulent evening of thought-provoking performance! Featuring the bi-licious talents of Greta Christina (Writer), Liz Green (Writer/Performer), Nick Leonard (Comedian/MC), Khalil Sullivan (Singer/Songwriter), Three Sisters Dance Company (Belly Dancing), Elisa M Welch and Jim McLaren (Music Duo).

Saturday, June 6 @ 6pm (Opening Reception)
Fresh Meat in the Gallery VI: Defying Gravities
LGBT Community Center 2nd & 3rd Floor
Visual Art Exhibtion
Free
This year's exhibition, Defying Gravities, asks artists: In these unstable times how do you and your community rise up and thrive? What do you create that grounds or defies? How do you ground yourself in the midst of instability? What connections do you rely on or seek out? How do you find relief through humor or outrageousness? What do you dream of for yourself or your community? Queer history is full of acts of defiance. How do you find inspiration today in these histories? Show runs through July 15.


Sunday, June 7 @ 3pm (Opening Reception)
THREADS
SOMArts
Visual Art Exhibition
Free
Join Qcc and an amazing international group of talented visual/media artists for the opening of our art exhibition, Threads. Threads is not just about fabric and costume but also how queerness weaves the threads of our physical, social and moral existence together into a multi-dimensional fabric of community and our selves. What are the threads that bind, mend and sometimes unravel this spectacular fabric? How do we fashion, perform, subvert or display queerness in our art and lives? Fashion yourself high or low and don your hottest threads for the opening! There will be a photo booth and photographers roaming about capturing the fabulousness of it all with music and performance in the galleries—not to mention, food and drink. All for free and fun.

Sunday, June 7 @ 7pm
San Francisco is Burning!
SOMArts
Fashion Runway Competition
$20-$50, www.brownpapertickets.com
Qcc enters the world of fabulous fashion with its first ever Benefit: San Francisco is Burning! Join celebrity judges and special guests at this fierce competition for prizes and bragging rights in this fun evening of fashion, music and flash. Fashion Houses have been built from the art venues and producers of the Festival: The House of Radar, The Garage, the Troupes and House of Freeplay! Their models will strut their stuff on the runway- and that stuff will be startling, sexy, simple, smart and seriously over the top. Sometimes all at once. If you pony up for the top ticket price (it is a benefit after all!), you will be entered to win the glittering golden Festival Pass and other special prizes. Come out for big fun and have a ball at San Francisco is Burning!

Sunday, June 7 @ 2pm
Weaving a Web of Queerness: Creation Myths in the Wynbiverse
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
Multi disciplinary
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Wynbiverse is a journey into the myths of creation. Opening Day Gala features day-long events. Feast of Burden at 3pm; artist Q & A/tour at 5pm; and Radical Fairie Cabaret at 6pm with performance by the Butt Hole Puppets, Jupiter, and Storm. Video trips by 3. Music by DJ Malaki.


Sunday, June 7 @ 2pm
Krip Salon: Reception for Fabulous/Activist Bay Area Lesbians with Disabilities Project
GLBT Historical Society
Multidisciplinary
Free
Join us for a fabulous afternoon of poetry, music, and comedy by queer disabled performers as we thank our supporters and introduce the community to Fabled Asp, a project chronicling and celebrating 40 years of disability arts, activism and culture in the Bay Area. A fun filled event that is sure to leave you with a smile featuring Papa Dino in a Drag King and Burlesque performance, poetry by Dominika Bednarska, Patty Overland, Jill Lessing and music and comedy surprises.

Monday, June 8 @ 7:30pm
Testimonies, Chisme, Spilling the Tea: An Evening of Poetry
SOMArts
Spoken word/ Lit
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
A literary event sure to sparkle, rectify and incite, as established & emerging poets scratch the page with literary histories -- crossing generations, genres and borders of any and all imaginations. Join this intergenerational entourage of fierce queer writers and poets, as they testify to the piercing pleasures of textual promise in poetry. Featuring Dorothy Allison, Ching-In Chen, Elana Dykewomon, Rigoberto González, Eloise Klein Healy, Cole Krawitz, D.A. Powell, Ely Shipley & Griselda Suárez. Hosted by Jewelle Gomez.

Monday, June 8 @ 8pm
Translations
The Garage
Theater/Performance
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
A decades-long love affair born during student protests in Mexico City in 1968; A Black Panther on the down low in Oakland; A tomboy guitarist strumming against Martial Law in the Philippines: Queer histories and communities collide in Translations, a multi-genre theater piece produced by Nico Dacumos. Translations is brought to the stage via a collaborative script by Dewayne Dickerson, Natalia Vigil and Dacumos, with music by Jesus Guillèn, the direction of Aimee Espiritu and a cast of talented queer actors. The action drops us into the thick of experiences left untold for decades, shining light on the legacies that bring us where we are today—in our hearts and identities, on the streets and under the sheets.


Tuesday, June 9 @ 6pm
RADAR SuperStar
San Francisco Public Library- Main Branch
Spoken Word/ Lit
Free
It's RADAR's sixth birthday! Come whoop it up with NYC lez author Sarah Schulman, author of queer classics After Delores and People in Trouble, and the recently published novel The Child; club kid turned literary sensation James St. James, whose gory tell-all Party Monster was made into a film starring Macauley Culkin and who recently authored the young adult novel Freak Show! From Los Angeles, Raquel Guttierez, of the performance group Butchlalis de Panotchitlan, doing a solo sensation! And, Shawn Stewart Ruff, whose debut novel Finlater is super amazing. Michelle Tea will dole out extra special treats prepared by professionals!

Wednesdays, June 10; June 17; June 24 @ 6pm
MythFits
San Francisco Public Library- Main Branch
Spoken Word/ Lit
Free
Writers, filmmakers and performance artists queerify classic myths and seek out the deviant threads in tales of yore. Join us for this free 3-part series with a menagerie of artists from across the country! With Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa, Robin Coste Lewis, Sadie Lune, Elan, Luna Maia, Leah Lakshmi Piepezna Samarasinha, Sara Seinberg, and Brooklyn artist Samuael Topiary debuting her one-woman multi-media performance, Icarus. Hosted by San Francisco’s legendary Michelle Tea.
June 10: Gigi Otalvaro-Hormillosa, Robin Coste Lewis + Sadie Lune
June 17: Elan, Leah Lakshmi Piepezna Samarasinha + Luna Maia
June 24: Samuel Topiary + Sara Seinberg

Thursday, June 11 @ 7:30pm
SF in Exile (SFinX) Presents- REBEL GIRL: a riot grrrl nostalgia show
The Garage
Multidisciplinary
$10-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Riot grrrl was a youth and punk-oriented radical sociopolitical movement that captivated the hearts, minds, raging hormones, and feminist rage of many queer and trans teen girls in the early and mid-nineties. So scrawl SLUT across your midriff, toss that Huggy Bear 7" on the turntable and make a fanzine extolling the virtues of veganism + vibrators: It's Revolution Grrrl-Style, Now! -- with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Past and present zinestars and grrrl revolutionaries will tell wax nostalgic about the old days and let you know what they've been up to recently. Zines and cupcakes will be available for purchase.

Thursday, June 11 & Friday, June 12, 7:30pm
Into the Streets!
SOMArts
Multidisciplinary
Free
Queer literary provocateurs were dared to raid the archives at the GLBT Historical Society and come up with the inspiration to re-imagine or re-visit a moment of queer street protest. Eileen Myles, Ali Liebegott, Annie Danger, Justin Chin, Juba Kalamka, Myriam Gurba, Meliza Bañales, Keith Hennessy and Michelle Tea on 90’s AIDS activism, the riot at Compton's Cafeteria, Viet Nam and Gay Sunshine Press, BDSM, Queer Nation + Basic Instinct, the Rodney King Riots and other moments of public uprising. Don’t miss the thrill of queer resistance! Hosted by Michelle Tea. Sponsored by a generous grant from the Creative Work Fund.

Thursday, June 11 & Friday, June 12, 8pm
Queer Relations: New Writing from Queer and Two-Spirit Native Americans
Femina Potens
Spoken Word/ Lit
$10-$15, www.brownpapertickets.com
Native Americans are not merely ghosts from America’s denied history or the subjects of appropriation for the latest Hipster fashion craze. Hailing from Cherokee, Chickasaw and Yaqui nations, we walk out of genocide to speak our truths and tell our stories. We will describe our endeavors to preserve and reclaim our Native cultures and contextualize how our indigenous identities and our Queer experiences coexist. Supported by the San Francisco Arts Commission- Native American Arts & Cultural Traditions grant.

Thursday, June 11 – Saturday, June 13, 9pm
for now
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
Theater/Performance
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
A gentle spectacle made of the most mundane of materials. Lyrical and inventive. On a few small, carefully crafted stages, puppeteers Sarolta Cump, Audrey Delgado, Harvey Rabbit and Asaf Zulah investigate the private, the interior and its recesses and explore the public, the exterior and the unsaid while a soundscape by Matt:Matt and Melody Jones, emanating from a variety of handmade instruments, evolves, collapses and recovers itself. As in her previous works such as killing mom, HOP and the sand child as well as her design and mask work with San Francisco's Theatre of Yugen, Max and nimble-works create a complete world that is both meditative and beguiling.

Friday, June 12 @ 7:30pm
Quilts, Comforters and Bedsheets: Gay Men Write About Love, Relationships and Community
LGBT Center 4th Floor
Spoken Word/ Lit
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Get under the covers with the talented men of GuyWriters! Celebrating their 5th anniversary by spinning a few yarns about love, relationships and community, sex, romance and other fabrications unravel themselves in this powerful evening of poetry, prose and plays featuring the GuyWriters crew plus special guests. www.guywritersonline.org

Friday, June 12 – Sunday, June 14, various times
5th Annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival
Brava Theater
Free
The 5th annual Queer Women of Color Film Festival showcases feisty and fantastic voyages, from dyke couples navigating desire to the riveting routes of sex toys, you’ll be spellbound to saunter through your own saucy sojourns. Info: 415.752.0868, www.QWOCMAP.org

Saturday, June 13 @ 7pm-Reception & Market; 8pm-performance
Dirt Star
SOMArts
Multidisciplinary
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Poking fingers into dirt, food, and friends, Dirtstar connects generations and genres with story tellers, earthen homebuilders, film farmmakers, seed ball sculptors, bike-dancers, greywater-installers and chef-musicians creating visionary peeks at how we could be living with our world. A mix of delicious participation and performance featuring: elixirs at the Apothoqueery by Dori Midnight, tastings by Queer Food for Love, film and video by Allyson Mitchell, Bill Basquin and Ami Puri, performance by m.a . brooks, Change of State, Alex Cafarelli and other artists.

Saturday, June 13, 2pm
Body Ties- Together for Strength
The Garage
Body Movement Presentation
$5-$7, www.brownpapertickets.com
This in-the- moment, in- the- body spectacle only exists from the minds and bodies of the brave men from the Body Ties- Together for Strength Arts Festival Workshop Led by Michael Page. In this demo and discussion participants will reveal their inner selves and processes, share breakthroughs and challenges and engage you in our creative self explorations. Themes generated in the 5 week workshop will be highlighted through group improvisation and short original pieces. It includes music, dance and words of wisdom. Witness the stories woven from the process of exploring our male bodies.

Sunday, June 14 & Monday, June 15, 8pm
One Bad Year
The Garage
Performance
$10-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
In 2008, a marriage ended, a nephew was murdered, and a job was lost-- and that was only the first eight weeks of the year for Meliza Bañales. You'd think it would be a banner time to just throw in the towel, but how can you do that when there's so much meditating and hoola-hooping to do? One Bad Year is the story after the story. Using multi-media, dance, bubbles, balloons, science, Xicano-Buddhism, fashion and astrology, the show follows the three selves of Bañales -- her inner child, Lil' Missy; her inner-chola, Mari, and Meliza herself-- through their year-long journey of forgiveness, re-invention and really, really good hair. What we see are not the makings for a stellar tragedy, but the ingredients for healing and making it to the other side, relatively unscathed. Written and performed as part of the AIRspace Residency Program for the '08-'09 season.

Monday, June 15 @ 7pm
What is Queer Kinship
A thinkPhilosphy Salon moderated by D. Rita Alfonso, Ph.D.
Femina Potens
$5-$25, www.brownpapertickets.com
Where and how do we find our "queer of kin"? What kinds of bonds are possible within queer communities and what can we still see creating in the future? Feminist sisterhood, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, queer ball cultures, neo-pagan and fairy communities, the Eureka Valley Metropolitan Church, BA-Sappho (a virtual community), etc., these are just some of the many community groups in which we can participate, but do these allow people to form bonds sturdy and durable enough to sustain queer families of choice? Or, maybe community and family are just different, and we cannot get from communities the same things that we need to get from our kinfolk?

Tuesday, June 16 @ 7:30pm
Mythic Women – Small Press
LGBT Center 4th Floor
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Celebrate the release of Maiana Minahal's Legend Sondayo (Civil Defense Press) and Ching-In Chen's The Heart's Traffic (Arktoi Books/Red Hen Press) and these independent presses nurturing the voices of queer women! Gathering an exuberant range of voices and thematic concerns, this creative showcase features the work of Robyn Brooks, Ching-In Chen, Ananda Esteva, Judy Grahn, Eloise Klein Healy, Vanessa Huang, Danielle Montgomery, Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, Maiana Minahal, Rajasvini Bhansali, and Aimee Suzara. It is a celebration of the possibilities of queer women poetics, incorporating movement, dance, visual arts, and other poetic languages to reflect on the power of myth, lineage and history to expand/ limit our vision.

Tuesday, June 16 & Wednesday, June 17 @ 8pm
A Boy Called Noise
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
Theater
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Martyr, Coward, Fag, Lover, Son A gay teenager is murdered. A town tries to cover it up. A family struggles to respond. Only one will risk it all for justice. Join Julia Steele Allen and Ray Rizzo for this original one-woman rock opera that charts the distance from tragedy to transformation through the experiences of Noise’s mama Cindy Lou, his Daddy One-Eyed Jack, his lover Fishbone, his sister “Hurricane Alicia” and his best friend, Beth-Ann, on the day of Noise’s funeral. Each of them struggles with their sudden loss and their sense of responsibility; haunted by what they could have done differently, and what they could still do now, to honor the memory of a boy called Noise.

Wednesday, June 17 @ 7:30pm
Girl Talk: A Cis & Trans Woman Dialogue
LGBT Community Center, 4th Fl
Salon
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Queer cisgender women and queer transgender women are allies, friends, support systems, lovers, and partners to each other. From activism that includes everything from Take Back the Night to Camp Trans to supporting each other in having “othered” bodies in a world that is obsessed with idealized body types; to loving, having sex, and building family with each other in a world that wants us to disappear. Girl Talk is a spoken word show fostering and promoting dialogue about these relationships. Join us for a night of stories about sex, bodies, feminism, activism, challenging exclusion in masculine-centric dyke spaces, dating and breaking up, finding each other and finding love and family.

Wednesday, June 17 @ 8pm
Across Queer Time
The Garage
Film
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Across Queer Time is an exciting evening of experimental short films, videos, installation and performance works that explore the ever evolving queer body. Included in this evening will be historically important films like Dyketactics by Barbara Hammer as well as works having their regional debut by Marc Adelman, Julian Vargas, and Killer Banshee among others. Along with incredible films and videos will be an exciting performance by the ever surprising Margaret Tedesco. Curated by Jason Hanasik

Thursday, June 18 & Friday, June 19 @ 7:30pm
BorderOUT
SOMArts
Multidisciplinary
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
BorderOUT is a collaborative of Bay Area based queer immigrant artists. From stilt walking acrobats tracing humanity's constant migration from stardust, to border crossing rancheras, artists tell their stories through spoken word, music, dance and theater. Artists include the Cuban hip-hop group Krudas Cubensi, singer Maria Machetes, dancer and acrobat Gaston Mazo, poet Zuleikha Mahmood, the dance/theater group Colombian Soul, emcee Tru Bloo, singer Rosa Los Santos, and emcee Anita Visa.

Thursday, June 18 @ 8pm
Whore Lover: Sex Workers Queering Love
The Garage
Multidisciplinary
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Stories of romance in spite of social stigma, told from both sides of the bed. Turns out it’s not actually true that sex workers are incapable of feeling love or too generous, greedy, humiliated or gold-hearted to pursue it. Likewise, the city hosts hordes of humans who love whores. Whore Lover is a multi-media showcase of the art of balancing between erotic work and play and establishing long-term intimacy with those of us who charge by the hour. Tales of love, lust and lucre, straight (but not narrow!) from the talented mouths of porn stars, hookers, rent boys, strippers, Dominatrices, and the lovely folks who love them. Featuring: Sadie Lune, Kirk Read, Mariko Passion, Ed Wolf, Lorelei Lee, Ginger Virago, Seeley Quest, and Madsen Minax. Curated by Sadie Lune.

Thursday, June 18 – Sunday, June 21 (8pm Th-Sat; 7pm Sun)
Fresh Meat Festival: Transgender & Queer Performance Festival
Project Artaud Theater
Performance/ Theater
$15, www.brownapapertickets.com
The outrageously popular Fresh Meat Festival returns with the nation’s hottest, boldest transgender and queer artists performing hip hop, taiko, theater, modern dance and much more! D’Lo, the Barbary Coast Cloggers, Deadlee, Shawna Virago, Taiko Ren, Sean Dorsey Dance, Storm Miguel Florez, Mind Over Matter and more. These shows sell out – advance tickets recommended!

Friday, June 19 @ 6pm
12th Annual Queeriosity – Youth Speaks
LGBT Center 2nd Floor
Spoken Word/ Lit
Free
In the most "progressive" place in the so-called United States, in the wake of Proposition 8, caught between a dominant culture determined to pave the world over and our own aching hearts, we are. We are our own heroes. We are a living iconography. We believe in spirit. Some revolutions begin carefully. Sometimes the quiet ones are brave. Not all united voices are the same. Call us by our truest names. Queeriosity for the curious and courageous.

Friday, June 19 @ 6pm
Lineage- Matchmaking in the Archive
GLBT Historical Society
Visual Art
$4 suggested donation
LINEAGE, a project developed by E.G. Crichton as first Artist-in-Residence for the GLBT Historical Society, focuses on the collections of ordinary/extraordinary individuals who have died. E.G. is matching specific archives to living people who agree to develop a creative response. This project is building pair by pair, archive by archive, and will be exhibited as a traveling exhibition and a website. Come see photographic portraits of each pair by E.G., a music video about Jiro Onuma by Tina Takemoto, an Aria composed by Luciano Chessa inspired by Larry the Piano Man, a monologue about the “Talullah Bankhead of S.F.” by Lauren Crux, a dinner party installation inspired by Sally Binford, a film about Helen Harder…and much more.

Friday, June 19 & Saturday, June 20 (3 Separate programs)
Black & Tan Fantasy Festival
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
Multidisciplinary
All programs $12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com

Program 1 – New Orleans Anonymous/ My Black Fat Fetish
Friday, June 19 & Saturday, June 20 @ 7pm
New Orleans Anonymous is a dramatic comment on New Orleans pre and post Katrina. It uses interdisciplinary performance inspired by anonymously voiced interviews re-conditioned for the stage. Listen as the sassafras voice of reality tangles with the surreal character metaphors. Watch as Old New Orleans and New New Orleans get into a crawfish boil feud over who is better to lead the treasured Crescent City into its resurrection.

My Black Fat Fetish - Come on into Oral-Cul’s House, Be Bootiful! Oral-Cul is a curvy mama with an open heart and a sultry voice that guides the weary urban traveler. Like the “Eyes of Laura Mars” see what it means to be fat, black and queer in San Francisco all the while getting your wig worked.

Program 2 – Quilting Our Community: Family Movie Night
Friday, June 19 @ 9:15pm
Storytelling has long been a tradition in the African American community. In keeping with that tradition, we invite you to join us as we screen two dynamic films this Juneteenth for our Family Movie Night, “Brooklyn’s Bridge To Jordan” and “Black Aura On An Angel”. Also see previews of, “Mississippi Damned” and “Family”.

Program 3 – Many Fabrics/ One Quilt
Saturday, June 20 @ 9:15pm
We continue our Juneteenth celebration with a tapestry of music, performance art, spoken word, dance, and poetry. Our quilt encompasses the many textiles of diversity reflecting our experiences as Same Gender Loving African Americans knitting our multiple identities into our fabric of brotherhood. It is a time for reflection and rejoicing. It is a time for assessment, self-improvement and for planning the future. See performances by Nathan James, Anthony Williams, Jerry.Brown:Rhythm.Art.Poetry. (aka JBRAP), Shurlavision and by host Jair-The Literary Masturbator™

Saturday, June 20 @ 1pm
Queer Traditions
Femina Potens
Salon
Free
Join Fresh Meat Productions and the Queer Cultural Center for a dynamic panel and community discussion exploring the relationship of community traditions to LGBT art and culture. Moderated by Greg Day with panelists including Patrick Makuakāne (Director, Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu) and Ian Enriquez (Director, Barbary Coast Cloggers). Supported by a grant from the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.

Saturday, June 20 @ 8pm
Mangos With Chili Presents – QPOCalypse Now!
SOMArts
Multidisciplinary
Tix: $13-$20
The end times. 2012. The revolution. The apocalypse. Queer and trans people of color are always living in the end of the world. In this new Mangos With Chili performance spectacular, come see the best Bay Area queer and trans of color artists present new work exploring dreams and nightmares about revolution and the end times from many of our cultures through high-intensity drag, dance, spoken word, burlesque and hiphop – interspersed with video vignettes and an interactive multimedia altar. Come check out the beautiful, lifesaving high-quality queer and trans of color performance that Mangos With Chili is known for and emerge transformed!

Saturday, June 20 & Friday, June 26, 8pm
Exile: Vision Quest at the Edge of Identity/Nomenclature; Miigaadiwin
Femina Potens
Multidisciplinary
$10-$15, www.brownpapertickets.com
Exile: Vision Quest at the Edge of Identity: Max Wolf Valerio returned to the Blood (Kainai) Reserve in 2008 in Alberta, Canada after a 22 year absence. Exile searches for meaning in an individualist post-tribal urban Indian identity, while exploring dislocation, identity fragmentation and transsexual transformation. Timothy O’Neill creates a soundscape using the sounds of nature and samples of traditional Blackfoot music. Nomenclature, Miigaadiwin, a Forked Tongue is a 26 poem series in which Aja Couchois Duncan relanguages experience as an alternate self. The series is accompanied by visual footage by Alejandro Gabriel Cruz Gonzalez and Rozita Shamaelov Fogelman.
Supported by the San Francisco Arts Commission- Native American Arts & Cultural Traditions grant.

Sunday, June 21 & Monday, June 22 @ 8pm
Mighty Real. A multimedia evening of dueling solos.
The Garage
Lynn Breedlove & Silas Howard
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Ex-Tribe 8 members Silas Howard and Lynnee Breedlove are back minus chicks and guitars. Silas is poignant and handsome. Lynnee is funny and ugly. One is on Vitamin T. One is not. Both want to know what the hell is really real and true.
Lynnee Breedlove’s Confessions of a Poser is a comic look at bodies, the mystery of the purple dick, lesbo legacies and how to use them, fatherhood, butch heroes, and the impossibility of ever being man enough. Buckets and knives are still integral to the show.
Silas Howard’s Thank you for Being Urgent is a textured tale of a queer punk spilling into the crappy and exalted glitter of Hollywood’s desire and shame. He searches for true tales of fierce outsiders and re-imagines the mainstream, ruminating on American Dream loopholes, burlesque dancers with dementia, and tranny jazzmen.

Tuesday, June 23 @ 7:30pm
WritersCorps Presents- Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds
LGBT Community Center, 2nd Fl
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
The Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds, the new anthology from City Lights, showcases writers who have taught youth in the WritersCorps program. Hear Stephen Beachy, Dani Montgomery, marcos ramírez, Cathy Arellano, Aja Couchois Duncan, and Elissa Perry read their work and share insights about teaching youth through community settings like Larkin Street and Brava. As President Obama calls for the creation of an Artists Corps, the experiences and stories of the writers in this anthology are more relevant now than ever.
Wednesday, June 24 @ 7pm
5th Annual TransForming Community
LGBT Center 2nd Floor
Performance/ Salon
$12-$20, www.brownpapertickets.com
Join us for the 5th Annual TransForming Community! Conversations between queer and trans communities have changed dramatically in the last few years and this powerful evening of performance and discussion captures the innovation and tension of this evolving conversation. Don’t miss this year’s installment of cutting-edge critique and calls for self-determination! The lineup includes singer/dancer Josh Klipp, Renata J. Razza, activist Yoseñio V. Lewis, Jayna Ponder, Mila Ponder and Compton Cafeteria rioter Felicia Elizondo!

Friday June 26 (3:30pm performances, 7pm March)
6th Annual Trans March
Dolores Park
Free
Over 40 different performance artists onstage in Dolores Park both before and after the March! Calling all transfolk, friends, allies, and admirers. Dress up, show up, bring signs, speak out and be what happens! The Trans March is an independent, volunteer-organized, DIY community event.

Friday, June 26 @ 8pm
Barely Legal Comedy- Marga & The Boys
LGBT Center 2nd Floor
$15, www.brownpapertickets.com
“Marga and the Boys- Barely Legal Comedy” The hilarious homo hit returns on Pride week featuring “America’s Most Wanted Latina Lesbian” Marga Gomez (LOGO, Comedy Central) and the funniest, queerest boys in town: Marty Grimes AKA The Big Gay of The South Bay, David Hawkins a comedian/filmmaker/exhibitionist and the charming Nate Blanchard - nineteen years old and hoping to quit Starbucks by July.

Saturday, June 27 (3pm performances, 7pm March)
SF Dyke March- Dyke Rights = Human Rights
Dolores Park
Free
Join thousands of dykes in celebrating our culture at the Rally and then marching in all our power to the call: Dyke Rights = Human Rights. Visit www.thedykemarch.org for our extensive Special Needs Services, for volunteer opportunities or to make a donation.


Saturday, June 27 @ 8pm
König (King of Boylesque)
SOMArts
Theater/Performance
$15, www.brownpapertickets.com
Barnaby's [sfBoylesque] presents KöNIG — a pageant unlike any other. It takes more than a flawless physique, impeccable style, witty charms and jaw-dropping original talent to be crowned the King of Boylesque. This colorful pageant fuses the best in male vaudeville, circus and musical theatre entertainment, all backed by the acclaimed five-piece Dixieland Band, Fromagique. The contest showcases an international selection of eight top neo-burlesque performers competing in four categories (including the vintage swimsuit division, of course) before a celebrity panel of judges. A unique San Francisco evening of contemporary competitive cabaret— Hosted by eccentric vagabond Maximus Barnaby and opera diva Truly Scrumptious.

Tuesday, June 30 @ 7pm
Creating Queer Community
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory
Workshop
Free
The Queer Cultural Center will provide commissions between $100 - $500 innovative projects in any artistic medium. Projects that are multi-ethnic and/or cross-cultural in their approach or methodology are strongly encouraged. To be eligible to apply, you must attend this workshop (there are NO exceptions), which will feature presentations by artists who have originated projects that exemplify the program’s community-building and diversification goals. Evaluation criteria include: artistic integrity and originality, community impact and the applicants capacity to complete the project. Previous grantees from any cycle may NOT reapply to this entry-level program.

~See next page for Venues and Calendar Listing~


18 Venues (All venues are in San Francisco.):

a.Muse Art Gallery & Meeting Place 614 Alabama St @ 18th St
Artists Television Access 992 Valencia St @ 21st St
BRAVA Theater Center 2789 24th St. @ York
Center for Sex & Culture 1519 Mission St. @ 11th St.
CounterPulse 1310 Mission St.@ 9th St.
Dolores Park Dolores St. @ 18th St.
El Rio 3158 Mission St. @ Cesar Chavez
Femina Potens 2199 Market St. @ Sanchez
First Unitarian Universalist Church 1187 Franklin St @ Geary
The Garage 975 Howard St @ 6th Street
GLBT Historical Society 657 Mission St #300 & 499 Castro
Mama Calizo’s Voice Factory 1519 Mission St @ 11th St.
Roxie Cinema 3117 16th St. @ Valencia
SF LGBT Community Center 1800 Market St. @ Octavia
SF Main Library 100 Larkin St. @ Grove
SOMArts 934 Brannan St.@ 8th St.
Theater Artaud 450 Florida St @ 17th St
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 701 Mission St @ 3rd St


For Calendar Editors:

WHAT: Queer Cultural Center Presents…
The 12th Annual National Queer Arts Festival

A month-long festival of LGBT music, dance, visual art, spoken word, comedy, theater, and film.

WHEN: May 31 – July 11, 2009


WHERE: 18 venues in San Francisco


TICKETS: Prices range from 0 - $50.
www.brownpapertickets.com or (800) 838-3006


FESTIVAL SCHEDULE: www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/QFest09/09QF_Indx.html

MORE INFO: www.queerculturalcenter.org or (415) 864-4124


PRESS: Contact Elizabeth at (573) 268-1659 or qccfestival@gmail.com
Hi res photos of performers are available at www.queerculturalcenter.org/Press

The festival catalog is available for download at http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Press/NQAF09.pdf