| As 2015 comes to an end, I’d like to give a great big Thank You to all the amazing Queer Arts Family who have answered our 2015 fundraising call. It’s been an overwhelming outpouring of support in the past month, which has brought us to 92% of our $25,000 goal for the year. Today, I am reaching out to you personally to ask your support. As a friend of QAF, you know how unique our festival is. But that uniqueness is precious and often makes it hard for us to raise funds traditionally. We are asking for your help by making a donation today, or if you’ve already given, to please share this final 2015 call. This year is a critical turning point for the festival, as we change our dates to June 21-30, marking the Stonewall anniversary. Audiences have been asking for this for a very long time, and we are excited to be able to finally make the move. But change always comes with risk – and we have only 10 months between festivals to plan, our most compressed festival schedule ever (packed into only 10 days!), and thousands of QAFeurs we need to tell to come a month early. We are calling on you, our Queer Arts Family, to help us through this exciting but challenging transition. QAF is a charitable organization, and every last dollar goes back into the festival. Ticket prices only cover 5% of what it takes to put on the event. Your donation will help us to:bring queer art luminary Jonathan D. Katz to curate the 2016 visual arts exhibition. We are thrilled to bring his profound curatorial vision to Vancouver audiences, and to introduce him to new voices among out city’s tremendously talented artists.keep our festival financially accessible for all, and continue our pay what you can events, and free access to workshops for youthcontinue our practice of ASL translation or captioning for our language-based showsspread the word, making sure the festival faithful hear about the date change, and the rest of Vancouver hear about the creative capital of queer communitieskeep taking risks on challenging programming, exposing the voices of the full rage of queer artists, of diverse cultural backgrounds, varying abilities, all ages, emerging and established When our federal funding was withdrawn in 2013, queers stood up and said loud and clear how important this festival is to our communities – YOU got that crucial grant restored. We needed your help then, and we need it again now. It is up to all of us to make the festival possible. Thank you for being a part of QAF, for building with us an engaged, reflective and participatory creative queer community in Vancouver. Inspiration and dedication can only take us so far. Without you, we wouldn’t have what’s needed to realize this lovingly curated sensory experience, or bring our audience the fabulous queer space we all deserve.Wishing you and yours Happy Holigays and a Merry New Year, SD Holman QAF Artistic DirectorImage Credit: Bon and Monica take in Emilio Rojas’s “The Glory.” Photo by belle ancell photographyCall for Poets and ComposersQAF is thrilled to be presenting the 6th edition of the Art Song Lab program. #ASL2016 will be an amazing opportunity for emerging and established composers and poets to have their work rehearsed and developed by world class art-song performers, receive a world premiere (and archival recording) at QAF, attend workshops and receive mentorship with composer Jeffrey Ryan and poet Rachel Rose, and more!Application deadline is Jan. 15, 2016. |
QAF needs you | Call for poets and composers
