“Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”~ JBS Haldane in his 1927 essay, Possible Worlds
In this two-part interactive workshop we will explore the fine line between what we conventionally consider as illusions (such as a mirage) and that which we consider as ‘reality’. How real is reality? How real are our feelings & emotions?
If all existence is illusion-like as expounded by various eastern philosophical systems – something that we can infer through reasoning & have an embodied experience of – what impact can this potentially have on our emotional world, our behaviour, our actions and ethics?
The nondual wisdom of interdependence & the practices available to develop a sense of unconditional friendliness towards all beings (and things) couldn’t be more relevant than now when we are undergoing tectonic shifts in life as we know it. At the heart of these changes, what is at stake are our relationships & our affect. How can we relate & how would we relate if the boundaries between self & other dissolve? How does this impact our work as artists as we touch ‘others’ through every sensory and mental means available to us? What innate kinship do queers share with nonduality as a mode of life?
TEJAL SHAH, currently lives in Himachal Pradesh, India
Tejal’s practice consistently challenges the legible by occupying liminal spaces between fact, fiction and poetry. Working across diverse media such as video, photography, performance, installation and educational projects, Shah positions themself at the intersection of queer ecology, feminism and nondual Buddhist philosophy. Exploring the notions of “trans-”—with regard to gender and sexuality, but also to national or cultural identity—Shah’s work inhabits the position of the in-between as a means to destabilise the complacency of status quos. Theirs is an invitation to examine the relationship between power and knowledge, learned social and political behaviour, and the construction of norms.
Wicked brings together a multigenerational group of artists living and producing work across Canada and the United States as they explore the body, community, and architecture of homonormativity.
In 2020, we’re learning to live through a new form of containment during a global health pandemic. Our long fight for recognition and the foundations of community infrastructures that we created to sustain us are being fundamentally questioned.
Recently referred to as “A Showcase of Resilience in the Digital World”, the 12th Annual Queer Arts Festival (QAF) continues their digitally re-imagined festival through the weekend with headline performances from critically acclaimed artists such as avant-drag collective The Darlings and internationally acclaimed dancer/choreographer Noam Gagnon in his re-imagined This Crazy Show. With high expectations for audience attendance at these performances, organizers have advised to register early while “digital seats” are still available.
Throughout the run of the festival (July 16th – 26th), the global audience is invited to head over to the online QAF HUB qafonline.ca to soak in the arts from the safety of their own queer bubble. The HUB has proven to be a popular hangout with audiences, where they can register for events, sign up for limited edition souvenirs or catch shows they may have previously missed. But with the festival ending July 26th, time is running out to take part in:
● The Curator tour, Wicked: Curated Visual Art Exhibition and the Pride in Art Community Art Show: galleries can all be viewed online at any time throughout the festival. Just head to qafonline.ca!
Mail Out Art! Renounce your allegiance to nation and gender borders atElektra KB‘s “Cathara Autonomous Territory” digital checkpoint. Part of the Curated Visual Art Exhibit, visitcatcheckpoint.digital and sign up for a limited edition free C.A.T Stateless passport to be mailed to your home. Exclusive to QAF attendees: apply online ends on July 26th!
The WICKED-ness wraps up on closing night July 26th with our Glitter Is Forever: Pajama Party, the final marathon binge of the performances featured throughout the 2020 Queer Arts Festival!
Glitter is Forever: Pajama Party Program Schedule QAF’s Closing Binge-fest | Sunday July 26, 4PM – 1 AM
Get your dress jammies on and grab a drink(s) for the binge-worthy worldwide broadcast of the entire Queer Arts Festival! With guest hosts and surprises, Pajama Party attendees have one last chance to feast their senses on all the stellar performances of our featured 2020 artists and Interact with friends on the QAF online HUB!
Binge-fest Part 1: Readings and Conversations | 4:00-7:00PM (PST)
● Underground Absolute Fiction: An immersive play-meets-punk-concert, inspired by the Polish “home theatre.” Written by Anais West and co-produced by Queer Arts Festival and The Frank Theatre.
● A Night of Storytelling: Curated by Danny Ramadan, readings by local, national, and international writers.
● A Conversation on Queer Mentorship: Hiromi Goto and Erica Isomura explore the nuances of intergenerational mentorship as queer POC writers.
Booty Break: DJ Set from DJ O Show | 7:00-8:00PM (PST) Things are just getting warmed up at the Party, so let’s have a stretch, shall we? DJ O Show will get your PJ’s playful with an hour of high energy dance!
Binge-fest Part 2: Burlesque, Drag, and Dance | 8:00-11:00PM (PST)
● Too Spirited: Embrace your too-muchness with bombastic burlesque brought to you by the badass babes of Virago Nation.
● The Darlings, Uncensored: Experience the unexpected with genre-bending non-binary avant-drag collective, The Darlings: Continental Breakfast, PM, Rose Butch, and Maiden China.
● This Crazy Show: In his Swan Song, contemporary dance legend Noam Gagnon sashays the fine line between pain and pleasure in a fetishization of something glamorous and beautifully twisted: a monster beautified.
Binge-fest Part 3: Midnight Movies: VIVO Media Art Screenings | 11:00 – 1:00AM (PST)
● Rupture Probe: Recent queer shorts rupture normative notions of gender, pleasure, and activism.
Return to Sodom North: 90s Queer Video Out & Uncensored. Time travel with the Vancouver Queer media artists who raged back against the malignment and suppression of queer lived realities and representations of desire. Curated in partnership with VIVO Media Arts Centre.
Queer digital platform Revry creates their own spin on Freaky Friday with the new body-swap comedy series, Life is Easy. The New Zealand-based web series explores the complexities of race, gender, sex and the true meaning of being “woke” in 2020.
The show follows Jamie-Li (played by Chye-Ling Huang), a straight Chinese-Kiwi woman, and Curtis (Cole Jenkins), a gay white man. (Get it? Jamie Lee Curtis played Lindsay Lohan’s mother in the 2003 version of Freaky Friday.) The pair’s friendship seemingly transcends race, gender and sex. They think they’re “woke”—that is, until they wake up in each other’s bodies, upending the way they see others, each other and themselves.
Written by Huang and Jenkins, the series of eight 15-minute episodes premieres July 19 at 5 p.m., with a repeat screening at 8 p.m. PST on Revry’s Live TV Channels; the full season is on Revry Premium on July 17.ADVERTISEMENT
What to read:
It Is Wood, It Is Stone by Gabriella Burnham
Gabriella Burnham, a Brazilian-born author now living in New York City, is set to release her debut novel, It Is Wood, It Is Stone, in which romantic entanglements between women address class and colourism, sexuality and divisive histories. The novel follows an American woman named Linda who moves to São Paulo, Brazil with her husband for work. As Linda builds relationships with other women, she is pushed to reflect on both her privilege as a white, affluent woman travelling abroad and her evolving sexuality.
The novel is available for pre-order now and will be released on Amazon on July 28.
What to listen to:
“Teenage Dreamer” by Velvet Code
Toronto’s Velvet Code.
Toronto-based electronic musician Velvet Code releases their new single, “Teenage Dreamer,” on July 24. The song is meant to be an empowering LGBTQ2 summer anthem to connect with those navigating through tough times. The song’s release will be accompanied by a music video, shot entirely while in self-isolation.
With influences like Laidback Luke, Dada Life, Avicii, David Guetta and Calvin Harris, Velvet Code’s music can be described as ’80s and ’90s-influenced EDM. The electronic artist is currently in the midst of developing an inclusive LGBTQ2 record label, which is expected to be announced later this year.
Both the “Teenage Dreamer” song and music video will be available to stream on July 24, with the latter viewable on YouTube.
What to look at:
This Crazy Show
Canadian dancer Noam Gagnon performs his newest piece, This Crazy Show, for Vancouver’s annual Queer Arts Festival. The LGBTQ2 arts festival is entirely online this year (continuing until July 26), and is organized around the theme of revolution in honour of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. With This Crazy Show, the contemporary dancer wants to examine how precarious and ambiguous identity can be, exploring different gender roles and how the imaginations of children shape their identities.ADVERTISEMENT
Gagnon addresses the perpetual quest for love by revisiting the worlds of childhood, real and imagined, through a bionic woman superhero metaphor.
This Crazy Show streams July 25 at 7 p.m. and July 26 at 2 p.m. PDT on the Queer Arts Festival website. Tickets for the event are by donation and people can RSVP through Eventbrite.
Too Spirited, an Indigenous burlesque show performed for the Queer Arts Festival, was an amazing reminder of why burlesque is so invigorating to watch: it’s all about getting on stage to take ownership of your body, turning vulnerability into confidence. Sparkle Plenty, the emcee, guided viewers through numbers performed by the all-Indigenous group, Virago Nation. Too Spirited was streamed on Queer Arts Festival, with an interactive chat on the side to cheer the performers throughout their numbers. The attendees were enthusiastic and matched Sparkle’s upbeat energy.
While Sparkle Plenty spoke, an ASL interpreter helped communicate her words. I don’t often see ASL interpreters at shows which made me really appreciate this attempt to be inclusive and make burlesque more accessible.
“Tonight, it’s about highlighting and celebrating our resilience. Our sexy, powerful resilience!” Sparkle Plenty began.”When we hear stories about Indigenous women in the media, the main stories that are being shared are of our suffering or being a caricature. We wanted to show that we’re more than this: that sexuality is fun, and most importantly, a healthy expression of ourselves!” While she spoke, Shane Sable, another performer, cheered in the live chat. Not only was it endearing to see performers support each other, but in this case, it helped the show reach beyond the screen. Sparkle Plenty’s words were powerful ones, and prepared me for the bombastic, beautiful displays of sexuality that I was about to witness. These acts also made me happy about having the option of tipping each performer.
The first number was performed by RainbowGlitz, and Sparkle Plenty introduced her performance as commentary on tradition through a colonial lens, and true tradition that embraces being naked. RainbowGlitz entered the stage in a crow costume, shuffling to an insistent drum beat. Then, hiding behind a stage prop, she dropped the crow head and reappeared in heels to the tune of Demi Lovato’s “Sorry Not Sorry.” She proceeded to strut and writhe on stage, a complete 180 to the first half of the performance. By the time she left the stage, she was confidently exposing her breasts. Admittedly, not hearing the audience’s cheers after each performance was unusual, but I could hear the other performers encourage the stage performer which felt heartwarming.
Next, Sparkle Plenty performed in a long coral number, slowly stripping her gloves with a brilliant and sassy smile. What I loved about Sparkle Plenty’s performance was that she stripped her hair extensions, and was handed a second ponytail by a person off stage, proceeding to dance wildly with her hair extensions. Her glee was contagious, and I found myself beaming as I watched her. She later said in an exasperated tone, “The moral of the story is, ‘pin your damn wig in’.”
What really made a lasting impression was the third number, performed by Lynx Chase. The song in the background was considerably slower, which showed off Lynx’s control as a pole dancer. I watched in awe as she wound down the pole, seemingly glued to it by her waist and thighs. Every movement seemed smooth and intentional, and I was absolutely mesmerized. In addition, I was struck by Sparkle Plenty’s comments after Lynx’s performance, “Pole dancing has become more popular in the mainstream, and we’re seeing people try to brand it as ‘sexy fitness.’ Never forget that strip culture was birthed by black strippers and sex workers, show your fucking gratitude!”
The show was filled with incredible performances and commentary, with a notable theme of 70s style costuming. Watching the performers embrace their body unabashedly served — as burlesque often does — as a wonderful reminder for me to be more kind to my own. I highly recommend checking out the video recording here if you’re looking for a fun way to spend your night and to support some gorgeous and talented Indigenous babes. Queer Arts Festival will also be streaming the show for a second time on July 26, and will be offering a variety of other events until the festival closes on July 26.
| The non-binary quartet are about to offer their most ambitious performance yet
| Queeries is a weekly column by CBC Arts producer Peter Knegt that queries LGBTQ art, culture and/or identity through a personal lens.
There are few folks pushing the boundaries of drag quite like the four members that make up The Darlings. A multidisciplinary performance collective featuring Continental Breakfast (Chris Reed), P.M. (Desi Rekrut), Maiden China (Kendell Yan) and Rose Butch (Rae Takei), the Vancouver-based quartet turn conventional drag upside down by exploring the “genderqueer, non-binary, and trans experience through the use of movement, poetry, performance art, theatre, and immersive installation.”
During the past few months, The Darlings lit up our dire existences (and apparently offended Facebook censors) with “Quarantine I” and “Quarantine II,” two innovative performances they put together from their respective self-isolations. And now, they’re coming back together for the first show they’ve worked together in person since February — and their most ambitious presentation in the two years since forming. Streaming as part of the Queer Arts Festival’s 2020 virtual edition, the hour-long filmed performance promises to be a highlight of our new digital festival realities, and you can watch it from anywhere this Friday, July 24 at 7pm PT.
In anticipation of the performance, The Darlings chatted with CBC Arts about their process, which they also had documented through a short film produced by CBC’s Creator Network that was directed by Eric Sanderson. You can watch the film just below and then scroll further down to read a bit about The Darlings’ plan to take over the world (whenever the world once again becomes safe to take over, that is).
Watch
The Darlings: Live from Quarantine
2 days ago
11:35
This film follows non-binary drag performers Continental Breakfast (Chris Reed), P.M. (Desi Rekrut), Maiden China (Kendell Yan) and Rose Butch (Rae Takei) as they get ready to perform together in person for the first time since the start of the pandemic. 11:35
Tell me about The Darlings and how you all came together.
Rose Butch: We’re a multidisciplinary non-binary drag performance collective, and as a group we’re turning two this year! Before we started performing as The Darlings, we would work with each other at different shows and parties around town; [we] admired each other as performers and we’ve always gotten along as friends. We all come at drag from different viewpoints that all somehow intersect — PM is a trained dancer, I’m a theatre artist, Continental Breakfast is a comedian and actor, and Maiden China is a writer and activist.
PM had gotten the four of us together to work on a photo shoot with Sean Alistair, who’s an artist that we’ve ended up collaborating with quite a bit, and brought up this idea that they had with Breakfast about the four of us putting together an immersive night that didn’t follow the conventional format of drag shows as we knew them — where we could do riskier and more experimental stuff that we all seemed to be drawn to in our performance anyway.
Our first show went up in a DIY warehouse space to an audience of 89 people, just after Pride in 2018. We had no idea what to expect. But the energy was electric, the support was there, and we knew we were onto something.
Rose Butch. (Maya Ritchey/Queer Based Media)
What is The Darlings’ mission and what do you aim to express through your art?
Maiden China: I always aim to express vulnerability and a keen sense of emotional intelligence through my work, while challenging hegemonic systems of power and oppressive ideals. I believe art is inherently political.
Rose Butch: We aim to challenge and employ the conventions of drag as a medium, using elements of lip sync, dance, poetry, visual art, physical theatre and spoken word to explore narratives of queer, trans and non-binary experience. Thematically, we work a lot with relational dynamics, intimacy, and nostalgia, queering and reclaiming memories. Currently, our mission is to provide the world with some much-needed queer escapism and catharsis.
PM: I think our biggest mission is to be seen and heard — loudly at that. We want to force-feed our audiences pure queerness and make them question every construct they may have about what they “think drag looks like.” Drag is such a beautiful thing, but there isn’t just one way to do it. Drag can cross mediums such as poetry, theatre, dance, live music…The Darlings aim to not be stagnant and never be comfortable, and continually push and express what it is to be non-binary in many different avenues.
Maiden China. (Maya Ritchey/Queer Based Media)
The Darlings recently faced censorship from Facebook due to a live performance they deemed “inappropriate.” Can you tell me a bit about that and how you feel about it now?
Rose Butch: We totally thought that we’d really toned down our content to make it Facebook-friendly the first time around, so when we were flagged and taken down for “inappropriate content” during our Quarantine II show after we’d deliberately tried to check every box we could think of, it was so frustrating.
At a time when there was so much uncertainty around queer community spaces and loss of opportunity as performing artists, having even a digital platform pulled out from under us was disappointing to say the least. We released a video addressing the censorship, and took a step back from self-producing online content as a collective for the time being. Looking back at it now seems like so long ago, even though it’s literally been three months. Honestly, it’s hard not to see the censorship as targeting a group mostly made up of queer and trans POC — if it had been a group of artists with a different set of privileges, would they have been met with the same response?
PM: Being virtual has posed many challenges. It really made us converse and talk about why queerness is censored. We weren’t breaking rules, and we made sure that our content could be viewed by all generations. The fact that our show was taken down felt quite homophobic to say the least. People make it hard on artists — not just queer artists — to showcase anything out of the normal. What we do is uncomfortable, and people see that as being wrong. Queerness is often seen as being wrong. But, if you have a brain inside that head, you should be able to see that art is art, queer or not. In blocking our voices, it made us re-route and re-imagine how to work over quarantine, and how to overcome these obstacles. Art will not stop being made, and it just challenged us to continue making it. Look at us now! Unstoppable.
PM. (Maya Ritchey/Queer Based Media)
What can we expect from the performance at the Queer Arts Festival?
PM: You can expect a whole lot of non-binary energy! We hope to take the viewers on a rollercoaster with this show. We paired up with Queer Based Media, and all I can say is the footage is hot. Hopefully you will shed a tear, laugh, and feel emotionally exhausted at the end of the hour!
Rose Butch: This has been the first time we’ve worked on a show in person since February, and the fact that one of our members (me) is physically distancing within the group has played into the creation process, so that’s something that you may pick up on. The QAF have also provided us with ASL interpretation, and we’ve been excited to collaborate on a show that’s more accessible to everyone. You can expect fantasy, lots of big feelings, and, in the spirit of Pride, some good old-fashioned resistance.
Maiden China: This is the largest project the four of us have ever worked on. Coming out of the restricted circumstances of the initial phases of quarantine that led us to create Quarantine I & II, we are all so thrilled to be back in a physical space together and pushing our boundaries with regard to our form. Rose, PM, and Continental blow me away every time they perform, and this Queer Arts Festival film is a testament to their creative excellence.
Continental Breakfast. (Maya Ritchey/Queer Based Media)
Where do you want to take The Darlings into the future?
PM: I would love for The Darlings [to be] on ice or in outer space. That would be ideal. But for now, I think we want to really work as a collective on creating great content, and hit as many stages as we can. I (personally) would love more opportunities to tour with this amazing group of individuals. They are my best friends, and whenever we get out of the city it feels like what we are doing is stretching farther then our limbs can here in Vancouver. Touring makes what you do feel so impactful.
Rose Butch: Hopefully back to performing for live audiences as soon as it’s safe to do so. And then, the world???
Maiden China: Stages across the world. On a major streaming platform. At film and theatre festivals abroad. I want The Darlings to be household.
Lynx the trans-identified Toronto based vocalist, guitarist, songwriter, and producer Lynx has a major love of pop music with an edge and has an indie heart making his style truly stand out. Follow him http://www.randomorder.ca www.facebook.com/randomorder www.randomorder.bandcamp.com www.twitter.com/randomorderband
Rainbow Glitz Part of the troupe TOO SPIRITED – Indigenous Burlesque with Virago Nation Performing at the 12th Annual Queer Arts Festival July 17th
From their website viragonation.ca www.instagram.com/randomorderband www.smarturl.it/RandomOrder_Spotify
Anais West is a queer actor, playwright, and producer, as well as a settler of Polish descent. She is the playwright of Underground Absolute Fiction, which has a reading at the Queer Arts Festival, in association with the frank theatre. Underground Absolute Fiction is an immersive play-meets-punk-concert, inspired by the apartment theatre of 1980s Poland. It invites audiences into a secret meeting at a post-Communist home. There, they join a queer punk band and Lena, a Polish-Canadian settler. Follow online.
Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker, and LGBTQ+ refugee activist. A Night of Storytelling at the Queer Arts Festival is back for its fifth year and once again hosted by the much-beloved Danny Ramadan, this time around as a new online experience. Spend a night in with the talented LGBTQ2+ voices of the CanLit scene. Follow him online.
Erica Hiroko Isomura ‘A Conversation On Queer Mentorship’ writer based in Vancouver. Check out programming at Queer Arts Festival. https://qafonline.ca/a-conversation-on-queer-mentorship/ Social media handles @ericahiroko (Twitter and Instagram) ericahiroko.ca
Now in its 12th year, Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival isn’t letting physical distancing measures get in the way of its programming, as organizers reimagine the festival for the digital realm.
Thierry Gudel, president of the Pride in Art Society, says the festival it puts on is as resilient as the communities it represents.
“Safety is a luxury afforded to few: to those with homes, accessible health care, as well as those who don’t need to protest to have their lives valued by the state. As a result, our communities have become resilient. Queer Arts Festival is resilient, thanks to the passion and dedication of artists, volunteers, audiences, and staff,” said Gudel in a statement.
The festival, which takes place July 16-26, features a variety of performance, theatre, music, dance and literary events, all digitally streamed, with art installations throughout the city.
Festival organizers are also creating a Queer Arts Festival magazine that will be mailed out to everyone on the festival mailing list, and will be available for pick-up at select open venues in the city.
The festival’s artistic director SD Holman says, ultimately, art can have transformative powers.
“We are often attracted to things, things that are written or other things that we already believe in,” Holman said.
“Good art has the ability to cut through that confirmation bias and open you up and transform you to new ideas.”
To attend or see more details about upcoming performances, visit the festival website.
Vancouver’s Queer Arts Festival has gone virtual this year…and this is one event you won’t want to miss
As it has with pretty much every cultural event over the past four months, the pandemic has made Vancouver’s annual Queer Arts Festival go virtual — the silver lining of which is that we can all experience what it has to offer from wherever we are. From July 16-26, visual art, performance, theatre, music, dance and literary events will be presented across various platforms, all curated around the theme of Wicked. Wicked‘s specific mission is to reimagine “identity politics, exposing the implications of homonormativity as erasure.”
One major highlight of the festival is sure to be a performance by Virago Nation, a collective of Indigenous artists creating work “through burlesque, theatre, song and spoken word as well as workshops, and community networks rematriating Indigenous sexuality.” Featuring performers Shane Sable, Scarlet Delirium, Sparkle Plenty, Monday Blues, Lynx Chase and RainbowGlitz, the virtual event takes place July 17th at 7pm PT.
“You can expect to see amazing array of different styles, pushing the envelope of the art we call burlesque,” RainbowGlitz tells CBC Arts. “We are all leaving not only our hearts but our own individual point of view on Indigenous sexuality. Get ready for the heart, power and super talent of this amazing group of Indigenous burlesque artists.”
Founded in May 2016, Virago Nation has been on a mission to “reclaim Indigenous sexuality from the toxic effects of colonization” ever since.
“It actually started with Shane Sable wanting to make a community for herself and other Indigenous artists,” RainbowGlitz says. “That’s why she reached out to Sparkle Plenty, Scarlet Delirium, Manda Stroyer and Ruthe Ordare and invited them to come together to talk, attend more Indigenous events and just be with each other on their journey to explore their Indigenous culture.”
“After meeting a few times they decided since they are all burlesque dancers, why not make it a troupe too? From there, they became Virago Nation. Shane posted on Facebook that they were forming a group and look for other Indigenous burlesque dancers, and that’s how I joined the group.”
RainbowGlitz says that “through humour, seduction, pop culture and politics” the group will show that Indigenous women “will not be confined to the colonial virgin-whore dichotomy but design a new dynamic and multifaceted sexual identity rooted in their own desires.”
RainbowGlitz. (Jon-Christian Ashby)
Like many artists, the past few months have been very up and down for the members of Virago Nation.
“We’ve just been taking it one day at a time,” RainbowGlitz says. “It’s been a little hard to be artistic for myself during this time, but a lot of us have been doing online shows and working on costumes while we have the somewhat downtime. But we all have different dreams for this amazing thing we call Virago Nation, and right now we are still letting the wind take us where we want to go.”
CBC Arts understands that this is an incredibly difficult time for artists and arts organizations across this country. We will do our best to provide valuable information, share inspiring stories of communities rising up and make us all feel as (virtually) connected as possible as we get through this together. If there’s something you think we should be talking about, let us know by emailing us at cbcarts@cbc.ca. See more of our COVID-related coverage here.
Like many artists these days, acclaimed dancer/choreographer Noam Gagnonhas had to take a different approach to his work as the novel coronavirus pandemic has, for the most part, put the brakes on performing in front of live audiences.
Gagnon is one of many contributors to the annual artist-run, multidisciplinary Queer Arts Festival (QAF) that runs this year from July 16 to 26. His work The Crazy Show will be filmed at The Cultch without an audience and streamed July 25 and 26 as part of the 12th annual festival.
The last time the veteran contemporary dance artist did this show was four years ago. It’s safe to say what a difference time and a pandemic make. The artist is now playing to the camera, not the crowd.
Gagnon said the challenge to reshape his work has been “difficult but welcomed” as he said it pressed him to be more efficient with his time and body.
“The show is so tight and feels very strong and direct because now it is being performed for camera,” said Gagnon, a Montreal native who has called Vancouver home for 30 years.
“There is a 2D that creates a coldness and because we don’t have the budget of TV to create this amazing editing I had to really reconceptualize the idea of the images and how this character was pushing through. I am really happy about the changes.
“It’s about the negative space and the positive space, and the timing between. You realize there is something that is transmuted between you and your audience, but it is truly a 2D experience,” added Gagnon. “It was almost like creating pictures.”
The 50-minute solo show Gagnon explains is about a boy who uses his imagination a lot.
“It is the traditional journey of the hero on some level,” said Gagnon. “It is about finding yourself. I don’t know if we advance ultimately but you find your truth.”
Gagnon is one of about 40 artists who are contributing to this year’s QAF.
“First of all I think it is a great fit for the festival because the main thing about this show, This Crazy Show, is truly about the power of imagination as a source for survival.”
Choreographer/dancer Noam Gagnon is one of 40 artists taking part in this year’s Queer Arts Festival, which runs July 16-26. Gagnon’s show, This Crazy Show, will be filmed at The Cultch and streamed online July 25 and 26. (Photo by Mark Mushet, contributed) MARK MUSHET/PNG
Those words ring true when you look at how so many live art events have had to figure out how to keep going during these physical-distancing times.
The QAF seems to have shifted to an impressive mixture of an online and live event. A dozen performances will be recorded at The Cultch and then streamed online.
This year called Wicked, QAF is celebrating “queer traditions of scandal and excess” with visual art, performance art, theatre, music, dance and literary events. Also the usual event program has been replaced bya spanking new 60-page, art-filled hard copy ’zine.
The festival’s artistic director SD Holman says artwork instead of usual advertising has been posted in bus shelters, on billboards and community projection screens.
“There will be some surprises in public art out and about town. And there will be mail art. We’re doing some other mail art aside from the ‘zine,” said Holman.
The multidisciplinary festival’s wide reaching net offers plenty of opportunity for artists to work and for their art to connect and support those 2SLGBTQ+ people who may be isolated by the COVID-19 outbreak without much of a support system.
“From the very beginning, for me closing or shutting down was not an option,” said Holman who is also a visual artist. “Personally, I would like nothing better then shutting down and being in my backyard for a few months, but I have staff I want to take care of and artists who need work.
“What I saw right away is that artists were losing work all over the place and, because where I come from, I think art is really, really important. Art changes people and people change the world.”
While having to reconfigure and remount, work has been tough on every level possible for the long-running festival. Holman points out that out of this weird self-isolating time there have been many moments to build more connections.
“That is the plus side. That is what I talked to my staff about from the very beginning. We’re all very sad, but this is an opportunity to reach a much broader audience and go more international,” said Holman, adding she has wanted to improve the festival’s online presence for some time.
“It really opens things up,” added Holman, who has had the idea for a virtual gallery in her strategic plan for some time. “There are people who wouldn’t necessarily come because they can’t get out of their homes for whatever reasons. So now they are able to do this.”
For the artists like Gagnon this new reality has also delivered some new-world positives and even excellent PR.
“People who wouldn’t be able to come here will still be able to see the show,” said Gagnon. “I think it is brilliant that it has opened the world to my performance.
“This whole COVID (pandemic) for me is filled and filled and filled with silver linings,” added Gagnon, who does weekly online sessions with friends and colleagues around the globe.
“I feel closer to the people in my life, but also with a culture and with a community around the world. The world has become closer.”
