(Or listings for: All Artists involved in QAF 2011 | Facilitators | Performers | Visual Artists | Writers)
Leroy WanReading in Queerotica, August 8
Leroy Wan (Leader Lovebot of “Leroy & The Lovebots”) on himself.
My name is Leroy Ngaitopelpetalian Tung Wan. I was born on November 26th, the year Freddie Mercury died. I’m just a person who woke up one morning and realized what I loved doing most in the world, and it just seems like a shame to not do that for the rest of your life.
Writer Lydia Kwa Photo: Jason Sims
Lydia Kwa lives and works in Vancouver as a writer and psychologist. She has published one book of poetry, The Colours of Heroines (Toronto: Women’s Press, 1994) and three novels This Place Called Absence (Winnipeg: Turnstone, 2000); The Walking Boy (Toronto: Key Porter, 2005) and Pulse (Toronto: Key Porter, 2010). She has also dabbled in combining text with visual images and music in a collaborative project, Dying to Dress (http://vimeo.com/21083844).
Marco SorianoReading in Queerotica, August 8
Since obtaining his BFA from SFU in 1997 and his teaching degree in 1998, he has performed on stage, screen, radio and in the classroom.
Photo Credit: Jack McKeown
Exhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13, and performing in Boulez Contra Cage, July 28
Flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor is the winner of numerous honours, including the CBC Pacific Spotlight and Debut Young Artists competitions, and has collaborated with many respected musicians, from Stephen Isserlis to Björk. Described as a musician of “huge physical energy,” McGregor’s performances have been lauded by the press as “mind-blowing” and “verging on the superhuman.” He has performed in festivals and music series throughout Canada, Europe, Australia and Israel.
Mark Kershaw
Performing in Short Shorts, August 7
Mark Seán’s show biz career began in the 70s when, with the aid of a Sanyo portable tape recorder, he created “radio dramas” in which he played all the parts. He later produced a hand puppet version of The Poseidon Adventure with a ballroom set that could be turned upside down.
Read more on Mark Seán Kershaw…
Exhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13
Naufus Ramirez-Figuroa is an interdisciplinary artist creating work in performance art, video, and painting. Ramirez-Figueroa explores issues of colonialism, hybrid identity, and power dynamics (usually through the politics of food production and consumption). He co-founded, with Irene Loughlin, the performance art collective EFIMEROS.
Read more on Naufus Ramirez-Figuroa…
Noam GagnonPerforming in Short Shorts, August 7, 2011
Noam Gagnon is the Artistic Director of Co. Vision Selective (www.visionselective.org) and the Director of Noam Gagnon’s Wellness Center/Beyond Pilates Inc. (www.beyondpilates.ca). Since its inception in 2006, Co. Vision Selective has produced several works including The Vision Impure, which premiered at The Cultch (Vancouver) in 2007. For his solo performance in The Vision Impure Noam received the Isadora Award for Excellence in Performance. In 2009, the work was remounted for a Canadian tour with new commissions by Daniel Léveillé and Nigel Charnock. 10 Things You’ll Hate about Me, a collaboration with playwright and director James Fagan Tait, premiered at The Cultch in 2010.
Pride in Art | Vancouver's Queer Arts FestivalExhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13
I am a self taught artist. As a youth, art was my passion but there was no Joseph Campbell in my life encouraging me to ‘follow my bliss’. I turned down entrance to the Ontario College of Art to spend 3 cold years in the Faculty of Architecture, University of Manitoba. Disillusioned with my bachelor’s degree and a conflicted emotional life, I changed direction. I traveled East for 2 years across Europe, N. Africa, the Middle East, India and the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal. I learned yoga, meditation and sketched the friends I made on my journey. Trekking alone I reached the glacier base camp of Mt Everest. I was happy and made the decision to be an artist but I was shy of academia. I headed home and West to the Kootenay Mt. and lived in relative isolation in an abandoned cabin next to Eagle Creek for 4 years. In spring the creek exploded with energy as boulders the size of the bears were rolled downstream by the force of the snow melt. Here I began the slow process of learning to paint by trial and error while earning a living as a tree planter.
Exhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13
Oscar Sanchez – Self Portrait
Patricia Atchison – Lesbian DebaucheryExhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13
Classically trained in 2D animation, at Capilano College in her hometown of Vancouver, Patricia’s career in the industry spans over a decade. Her experience as a designer, storyboard artist and artistic director allows her to bring versatility to her work in the industry accompanied by great integrity. With a recent win at the 2009 Elan awards, for Best Art Direction in an Animated Series for “Zeke’s Pad” (YTV Spring 2010), Patricia continues to push the limits in her field.
Read more on Patricia Atchison…
For the past 35 years, Persimmon Blackbridge has worked as a sculptor, writer, curator and performer, as well as being a fiction editor, cleaning lady and very bad waitress. She is known internationally as a pioneer in feminist, queer and disability arts and culture. She is the author or co-author of six books, including Prozac Highway, finalist for a 1997 Lambda Literary Award; Sunnybrook, winner of the 1996 Ferro-Grumley Fiction Prize; Her Tongue on My Theory (with Kiss & Tell), winner of a 1995 Lambda Literary Award; and Slow Dance (with Bonnie Sherr Klein), winner of the 1998 VanCity Book Prize. Her work has appeared in anthologies such as Hot and Bothered (Arsenal Pulp Press, Vancouver, B.C., 1999), The Click (McFarlane, Walter and Ross, Toronto, Ontario, 1997) Forbidden Territories (Cleis Press, San Francisco, California, 1995), and Collaboration in the Feminine (Second Story Press, Toronto, Ontario, 1994). Winner of the VIVA award for visual arts in 1991 and the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design Distinguished Alumni Award in 2000, Blackbridge’s art has been shown across Canada and the U.S., as well as in Australia, Europe, and Hong Kong. She currently lives on Hornby Island in British Columbia.
Read more on Persimmon Blackbridge…
Rachel IwaasaPerforming in Boulez contra Cage July 28
Hailed in the press as a ”keyboard virtuoso” (Georgia Straight) with the “emotional intensity” to take a piece “from notes on a page to a stunning work of art” (Victoria Times Colonist), pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa has performed as soloist and chamber musician in Canada, the United States and Germany. Known for bold and innovative concerts, Rachel combines her warmth and curiosity to touch the hearts and minds of audiences, whether she is playing Beethoven and Schumann or Ligeti and Saariaho.
Rachel Rose
Born in Vancouver, Canada, Rachel Rose holds dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship. She grew up on Hornby Island, in Vancouver’s Chinatown on Princess Street, in Anacortes, WA, and Seattle, and has also lived in Montreal and Maebashi, Japan. Her work has appeared in various journals in both countries, including The Malahat Review, Verse, Arc, Black Warrior Review, Poetry and The Best American Poetry.
Rebecca WhitlingPerforming in Short Shorts, Aug 7
Rebecca Whitling is a member of the first violin section of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and is Principal Second Violin of the National Broadcast Orchestra. A graduate of McGill and Indiana Universities and an alumna of the New World Symphony, Rebecca has appeared as a chamber and orchestral musician at Tanglewood, Schleswig-Holstein, Ojai, Cabrillo, and Mountain View music festivals. As a member of the prize-winning Plymouth String Quartet, she performed at festivals and concert series in the U.S., Europe, and South America. She has performed as soloist with the Vancouver Philharmonic, the Semiahmoo Strings, the Prince George Symphony and the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra.
Read more on Rebecca Whitling…
Rodrigo CervantesArtist Statement
Since many years ago were created the Queer Tango Festivals in Europe with a special feature: were open to the experience of dance between same-sex couples, and not only, but open to the possibility of exchanging roles to the couples that commonly dance in the male-female role. The European experiences of Hamburg, Stockholm, Sweden and the very recent experience of Copenhagen, as well as the experiences of Buenos Aires, San Francisco and New York in the Americas, demonstrate that the passion for the tango goes beyond the confines of the sexes and nations.
Read more on Rodrigo Cervantes…
Rosamond NorburyIf you’re born in the Himalayas and schooled in Paris, France, how could you not grow up to be a photographer of cowboys and kink?
Read more on Rosamond Norbury…
Visual Artist Roxanne Gagnon
Facilitator for 3 Day Youth Visual Arts Workshop,
A long- time visual arts instructor for Arts Umbrella, Roxanne holds a BFA from Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design, and is a recipient of the Jason Singh Memorial Award and the Moving Towards Independence Award. Roxanne is a practicing visual artist specializing in ceramics and printmaking. She has exhibited in Vancouver and Australia.
Sakino Sepulveda
Facilitator of Life Drawing Workshop, August 6-7
I was born in Monterrey, Mexico in 1965. Self taught artist.
In 1988 I made contact and start to work with the art movement of the 80s through Arte Actual Mexicano gallery in Monterrey city. In 1991 I worked and studied through my artist friends like Julio Galan and in the studio of artist Cesar Garcia Cavazos, a painter from The Mexican Modernist School of art.
Read more on Sakino Sepulveda…
SAM
SAMs debut album has been released on itunes. The album features Jerome Mandrake’s lyrical writing and vocal performances along with James Sadoway’s musical compositions and lyrical co-writing. Mandrake who has opened for Deborah Cox and released his own album “Affirmation” previously, teamed up with Sadoway who has remixed Sarah McLaughlin’s song “First Noel”, and had written and produce a song featured on Bravo! a Canadian cable channel with its own music video.
by Sarah RaceExhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13
Sarah has a BA in Political Science and a diploma in commercial photography.
Sarah has been working as a photographer since 2005.
Sigal SamuelReading in Queerotica, August 8
Sigal Samuel is a freelance writer currently based in Vancouver, Canada.
Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Event, Descant, Room, Scrivener Creative Review, Accenti Magazine, Thrust Magazine, and The Jerusalem Post, among other publications. Her personal journalism was featured at the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival in 2010. Sigal has written and produced five plays in Montreal and Vancouver. She is also a book and film reviewer for This Magazine, Schema Magazine, and PRISM international.
Pride in Art | Vancouver's Queer Arts FestivalActor Simon Webb
Simon is proud to be representing such a massively influential artist as John Cage, proud to be working with such skilled colleagues, and proud to be participating in his first Queer Arts Festival.
Stephen Middleton – JoanStephen is a perfectionist who strives to excel at whatever he attempts.
As well as attending the Banff School of Fine Arts, he has a BA from the University ofGuelph where he majored in drama with minors in fine art and psychology. His formal art training and early work was focused primarily on black and white portraits and figure drawing using charcoal, pencil and ink mediums.
Read more on Stephen Middleton…
Suzo Hickey – InvitationExhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13
Suzo Hickey is a painter and multidisciplinary artist living in Vancouver, BC. Born in 1959, she migrated from coast (Prince Rupert) to desert (Kamloops) before settling in Vancouver in 1990. She graduated from Emily Carr College of Art and Design in 1994, and has exhibited around BC and internationally on themes of queer mothering, namecalling, narrative and death in the family.
credit: Suzy StroetExhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13
Suzy Stroet was born and raised in Vancouver and continues to live and work in the city. She is an emerging artist whose work focuses on people and how they interact with, and inhabit the spaces they create.
Tiffany Tamaribuchi, an internationally recognized taiko master, has achieved a level of acclaim in trailblazing fashion.
In the traditional taiko realm, of Japanese born and trained male performers, she creates a new powerful voice with her multicultural heritage, youth, and feminine perspective. Ms. Tamaribuchi’s determination and perseverance, through long hours of grueling practice in her initial studies, transformed her sense of life’s possibilities, which she now does for others.
Read more on Tiffany Tamaribuchi…
Tillie King, photo courtesy Out on ScreenExhibiting in Games People Play curated exhibition July 26-August 13
Q: What do you get when you combine an artistic childhood, a B.A. in Anthropology (SFU), years of community volunteering and organizing and some corporate administration? A: Tillie, also known as a queer femme who enjoys yoga, hiking, kitchen experiments and making things with her hands. She’ll be busy this summer preparing a textile art piece for her first show at the Queer Arts Festival.
Hailed by the Globe and Mail for their “tremendous flair and intensity,” the flute/piano duo Tiresias was formed by flutist Mark Takeshi McGregor and pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa in 2002. A blind seer from Greek mythology, Tiresias was transformed from man to woman and back again by supernatural means. S/he symbolizes what Iwaasa and McGregor have set out to accomplish: to speak from two very different perspectives with a single voice, to provide fresh perspectives and insights into conventional chamber music programmes, and to anticipate the future trajectories of the chamber music genre through working with composers and artists from various disciplines.
Vancouver MenPerforming in Big Gay Sing July 31
The Vancouver Men’s Chorus is one of Canada’s premier singing ensembles and Canada’s first gay chorus. For more than 25 years, we’ve delighted audiences locally and abroad.
Read more on Vancouver Men’s Chorus…
Writer Wayne Koestenbaum Photo credit Heike Steinweg
Wayne Koestenbaum has published five books of poetry, one novel, and six books of nonfiction. A graduate of Harvard and Princeton, he is a distinguished professor of English at the CUNY Graduate Center and also a visiting professor in the painting department of the Yale School of Art.
Read more on Wayne Koestenbaum…
Exhibiting in Games People Playcurated exhibition July 26-August 13
Wendy Sexsmith is a Vancouver-based artist who is known for her transgressive oil paintings of performers who push gender boundaries and traditionalist notions of beauty and success.
William GeorgePerforming in Short Shorts, August 7
William George has performed with musical organizations around the world, including Los Angeles Opera, San Francisco Opera, New York City Opera, Hong Kong Arts Festival, the Savonlinna (Finland) Festival, the Aldeburgh (England) Festival, the Stockholm Tonsättarfestival, Philippines Symphony and at Carnegie Hall. He has toured the country as Count Almaviva with New York City Opera, and as Don Ottavio with Western Opera Theater. Recent performances include an appearance at the Elysium festival in Germany and New York singing Kurt Weill, concerts with contemporary music ensemble New Music New York, Carmina Burana with City Opera Vancouver, Messiah with Abbotsford Symphony, works by Vancouver electronic composer Barry Truax, and concerts with Erato Ensemble in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Zack SingerPerforming in Glitter and Be Gay, August 6
Zack Singer is a multi-instrumentalist and singer who loves to compose and perform many different styles of music. As a graduate of the UBC Bachelor of Music program, Zack has had years of experience studying the art of music performance and composition, giving his music a very unique edge. His instrument arsenal is extensive, including saxophone, piano, guitar, harmonica, various wind instruments and recently added weapon of choice, accordion. Some of Zack’s recent performance endeavors have been Galiano Island singer-songwriter Tamara Nile in her T Nile Band and with Karen-Lee Morlang and Katy Hedalen in various Koncert Kontinuum series concerts. In the folk music world, Singer has been writing and performing his own songs for over a year throughout the city with his good friend Sarah McGrath, as an indie-folk duo called The Grath Singers. This year, The Grath Singers plan to release their first album. Zack Singer loves to experience and learn new genres of music and is excited to continue discovering, creating, and performing wherever his life may take him.
Queer Arts Festival proudly presented by the Pride In Art Society. 