Queer Arts Festival
Sun Wah Centre, 2nd Floor — 268 Keefer St.
Join us for the festival closing party at the Sun Wah Centre: three glorious floors of art, plus music and performances by the Queens, Kings, and Things of the House of Rice, including the fabulous Shay Dior and Haina from China!
Sun Wah Centre, 2nd Floor – 268 Keefer St.
Berend McKenzie, Curator
Berend McKenzie (he/she/they interchangeably) is an award-winning playwright, actor, producer, screenwriter, and published author living on Treaty 6 land otherwise known as Edmonton, Alberta. Berend is best known for his ground-breaking, Jessie Richardson Award nominated one-person show NGGRFG. He has worked with Oscar-winning actresses Halle Berry and Angelina Jolie. Berend is currently writing his first auto-fiction novel, Adopted. In October 2021, Berend’s short story Hockey Night in Canada was published in the anthology Between Certain Death and A Possible Future: Queer Writing in Growing up with the AIDS Crisis (Arsenal Pulp Press) and has just completed writing their first TV pilot under option with Warner Media.
Centre A: Vancouver International Centre for Contemporary Asian Art – Unit 205, 268 Keefer St.
Adwait Singh, Curator. SD Holman, Visual Art Exhibition Creative Director.
Our curated visual art exhibition, Vanishing Act, becomes fully realized and fully materialized on Jul 2, when Centre A opens its doors as our festival partner. We’re celebrating our complete complement of curated artists with a building-wide tour of the entire exhibition led by the exhibition’s Curator, Adwait Singh, Visual Art Exhibition Creative Director, SD Holman, and visiting guest artists. Join us as we tour the multiple rooms that make up our most ambitious curated visual art show yet!
Aryakrishnan Ramakrishnan
Fazal Rizvi
Omer Wasim
Renate Lorenz & Pauline Boudry
Shahana Rajani
Syma Tariq
This event is ASL interpreted.
Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews
Gabriel Dharmoo is a music composer and experimental vocalist. Bijuriya is a drag artist engaging with South Asian culture. Gabriel values innovation and risk taking as he navigates Eurocentric artistic scenes. On social media, Bijuriya lip-syncs her way into the hearts of brown queers. Both of them have marginal practices but they have very different audiences. But Gabriel and Bijuriya are one person – and it’s time to bring them together on one stage. Code-switching between drag performance, original songs, experimental sound design and the porosity between singing and lip-syncing, this piece celebrates the artist’s brownness through an array of unexpected talents. A quirky yet vulnerable exploration of their inadequacy to fully represent the subcultures they seek to embrace.
Concept and performance: Gabriel Dharmoo (Bijuriya)
Technical Direction and Light Design: Jon Cleveland
Assistant to Light Design and to Tech Direction: Michael Tonus
Sound Design: Gabriel Dharmoo
Original songs: Bijuriya and Gabriel Ledoux
Voice, cello, steel pan and harmonium: Bijuriya
Electric guitar: Gabriel Ledoux
Additional vocals: Vidita Kanniks
Costumes: Bijuriya, Julie Pichette, Angela Rassenti
Wigs: Heaven Genderfck, Keith Fernandez
Sets accessories: Bijuriya
Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews
CS Fergusson-Vaux & Ben Siegl, Curators
Did you hear that sound? What could it be? A monster, a masked assailant, a man-eating shark, a spectral haunting tethered to our plane, neither alive nor dead until suddenly…! The jump scare—a mirror, a blade, a bloodied hand on your shoulder…
The horror film is a ripe framework for queer storytelling; a tense and violent confrontation with the unknown leaves you questioning your safety while inextricably inviting an experience that is both courageous and pleasurable. A haven of expressive catharsis, queer horror offers illusionary renderings of modern fears that give room to pick apart our monsters. The malevolence witnessed in the theatre is complex and personal, reminders of a history tucked under beds and hidden inside of closets—a lot of these monsters are our former roommates. Afterall, “…if something is both queer and gothic, look under the surface to disinter the insidious trauma buried there.” (Lauren Westengard)
“Reel Eerie” showcases filmmakers who have bravely picked-up a shovel and started to dig. Sifting through everything the genre has to offer—from the delightfully campy to the existentially terrifying—the films illustrate that our “real” journey from danger is always made in the hopes of heading towards liberation. Not all of us arrive, but we all do try.
This event is ASL interpreted.
Featuring Films by:
Jonathan Wysocki
Mary Galloway
Assistant Curator Benjamin Siegl is an artist, administrator and occasional curator hailing from the great state of Florida. Born in Philadelphia, he holds a BFA from Florida State University (2011) and a MFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2017) and currently resides on the unceded Coast Salish territories of Vancouver, BC. His interests include experimental animation and painting, and he is currently collaborating on a project with a PhD of molecular biology exploring the intersections of art and science.
Associate Artistic Director CS Fergusson-Vaux is a Black Carib Immigrant Artivist, and Historian with a fervent belief in decolonizing our community, encouraging and aiding in bold cultural endeavours, and constructing an ethical and inclusive artistic legacy. She uses Performative History, Transnational Studies, and JEDI based engagement to facilitate just artistic exchange between newly arrived diasporic and local queer commuities. She is currently pursuing studies in Social and Environmental Arts Practice.
Performance Works, Granville Island – 1218 Cartwright St.
**Please note that tickets to this event are not included in QAF’s festival pass, and tickets must be purchased through Coastal Jazz.
Sharing stories of ardour, resilience, and self-actualization, Adria Kain’s voice, at once powerful and restrained, is a balm for times of tumult and noise. Chronicling a range of experiences, from the palliative effects of the natural world to embracing her identity as a queer Black woman, Adria’s new album When Flowers Bloom reminds us what it’s like to fall in love for the first time—or to discover an artist whose music can pierce your soul.
Through the prism of alternative R&B, house, and pop, Caribbean-Canadian vocalist/producer/multi-instrumentalist Janette King’s What We Lost unpacks the complexities of grief with a wisdom you wouldn’t wish on someone so young. It’s a statement that — like contemporaries Victoria Monét and Snoh Aalegra — fuses deeply personal assessments of life with glass-half-full soundscapes that “ought to place her right near the top of the list of this country’s up-and-coming R&B artists” – Exclaim!
Presented in association with Coastal Jazz and Blues Society
Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre Performance Centre – 181 Roundhouse Mews
A comedy show. A protest. A cabaret. Winner of the 2020 Vancouver Fringe New Play Prize, Catalina La O explores the life of khattieQ and Puerto Rican singing legends Myrta Silva and Ruth Fernández. The ravages of a storm have forced Catalina La O to take shelter in an abandoned television studio. None of her live audience has arrived, but she broadcasts her one-woman show anyway to the millions of viewers she hopes are watching. Created by the duo jk jk (khattieQ, musician/performer; Jenny Larson-Quiñones, director/writer), Catalina La O is a piece for queer communities, a piece for colonized bodies, a piece for Puerto Rico, and a piece for anyone who has experienced heartbreak.
“Catalina La O gives voice to […] untold Latinx women’s stories, and to their struggle and resilience.” – Stir Vancouver
This event is ASL interpreted.
Read the press release for Catalina La O Presenta: Now With Me – English version / Versión en Español
Una payasa. Una protesta. Un cabaret. Ganadora del Premio de Mejor Obra Nueva en el Festival Fringe de Vancouver 2020, Catalina La O explora la vida de khattieQ y de las cantantes legendarias de Puerto Rico, Myrta Silva y Ruth Fernandez. Los estragos de una tormenta han forzado a Catalina a refugiarse en un estudio de television abandonado. La audiencia en vivo no ha llegado así que Catalina decide transmitir el show a los millones de espectadores que, ella espera, estén viendo el show por televisión.
Creada por el duo jkjk (Jenny Larson-Quiñones directora/escritora y khattieQ músicx/ejecutante), Catalina La O es una obra para las comunidades queer. Esta pieza es para los cuerpos colonizados, para Puerto Rico, para todas las personas que conocen la angustia.
Este evento va a ser interpretado en ASL.
Productor: From The Corner Productions
Co-presentador: Rumble Theatre
Una produccion asociada de frank theatre company y Neworld Theatre
jk jk
jk jk es Arte de la Performance creada por khattieQ(músicx/ejecutante) y Jenny Larson-Quiñones(directora/guionista). La pareja crea arte de performance queer ideado en colaboración, para magnificar las historias de los marginados y perturbar el status quo.
Catalina La O presenta Ahora Conmigo fue desarrollada con la ayuda de Playwrights Theatre Centre y la dramaturgia de Joanna Garfinkel y el apoyo creativo de Adrienne Dawes.
Presenting Partner:
Presenting Partner:
Performer: khattieQ
Playwright and Director: Jenny Larson-Quiñones
Producer: Shanae Sodhi
Associate Producer: Anahita Monfared
Composer: Anton Berrios
Sound Design: Erika Champion
Lighting Designer: Abby Levis
Set Designer: Kimira Reddy
Costume Design: Michelle Thorne
Stage Manager: Katie Voravong
Assistant Stage Manager: Rachel Brew
Production Manager: Jasmin Sandhu
Technical Manager: Victoria Bell
Catalina La O presenta: Now With Me was developed with Playwrights Theatre Centre and has received dramaturgy from Joanna Garfinkel, and creative support from Adrienne Dawes and Neworld Theatre. Produced with support from Canada Council for the Arts, British Columbia Arts Council, and Canadian Heritage
jk jk is performance art created by khattieQ (musician/performer) and Jenny Larson-Quiñones (director/writer). The couple creates collaboratively-devised queer performance art to magnify stories of the disenfranchised and disrupt the status quo.
Exhibition open Wed thru Sat, 12 – 6pm
The James Black Gallery – 144 E 6th Ave.
Long regarded as the bedrock of our Festival, the Pride in Art Community Show honours the legacy of founder, activist, and Two-Spirit artist Robbie Hong. This year we’ve teamed up with our queer partner-in-crime, The James Black Gallery, to showcase the audacious artwork of our local 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. Come see what haunts the artists in our midst …
Featured Artists:
Darius Kian
Holly Steele
Israel Aguayo
Juno
Kali Fish
Katharine Hoehn
Kwiigay + Paperwave
Nicholas Frenette
Nicole Melnicky
Steven Broome
Wed thru Sat, 12 – 6pm
Sun Wah Centre 3rd Floor, 4th Floor – 268 Keefer St.
Adwait Singh, Curator
SD Holman, Visual Art Exhibition Creative Director
Sun Wah Centre 2nd Floor – Unit 205, 268 Keefer St.
Sun Wah Centre | | Free
Our Vanishing Act Curated Visual Art Exhibition becomes fully realized, fully materialized on July 2, when Centre A opens its doors as our festival partner and we unveil the extension to this exhibition. We’re celebrating our complete complement of curated artists with a building-wide tour led by Curator, Adwait Singh, Visual Art Exhibition Creative Director, SD Holman, and visiting guest artists. We then return to Centre A for a 5pm reception – come raise a glass to our most ambitious Curated Visual Art Exhibition ever!
Read the press release for curated visual art show, Vanishing Act.
Adwait Singh is an independent curator and theorist based out of New Delhi. Their works frequently weave in and out of areas of inquiry such as subjectivity formation, gender and sexuality, posthumanism, contemporary technogenesis and ecofeminism. Shortly after completing their Master’s at Goldsmiths, they seized the opportunity to be a part of the Students’ Biennale 2016 and have since facilitated different art projects and workshops for/with young artistic practitioners across the country for various non-profit organisations. Recent curations include ‘Mutarerium’ at the Mumbai Art Room that questions the terminology of the Anthropocene based on three more-than-human evolutionary timelines (Mumbai, 2019) and ‘Caressing History’ — a group show investigating the possibility of a body-based historiography for Prameya Art Foundation (New Delhi, 2018). They have been appointed as the curator of the 5th edition of the Mardin Biennial (2020).
As an art writer Adwait has been devoting his energies documenting and theorising independent exhibitions and alternative art practices.
SD Holman (born 1963, Hollywood, California) is an award-winning artist and curator whose work has toured internationally. An ECUAD graduate in 1990, Holman was picked up by the Vancouver Association for Non-commercial Culture (the NON) right out of art school. Holman was appointed Artistic Director of Pride in Art in 2008 and spearheaded the founding of the Queer Arts Festival, now recognized among the top 2 of its kind worldwide, and SUM, Canada’s only queer-mandated transdisciplinary gallery. Holman has programmed artists notably including Kent Monkman, Cris Derksen, Jeremy Dutcher, Paul Wong, Angela Grossmann and Dana Claxton. A few Curatorial highlights include TRIGGER, the 25th anniversary exhibition for Kiss & Tell notorious Drawing the Line project, Adrian Stimson’s solo show Naked Napi, and Paul Wong’s monumental multi-curator Through the Trapdoor underground storage locker exhibition. Some of SD Holman’s other experience running art spaces included founding and running Studio Q the notorious Art Salon in Vancouver’s DTES Chinatown as noted in Secrets of the City 1st edition.
A laureate of the YWCA Women of Distinction Award, one of Canada’s most prestigious awards, Holman is known for engagement with themes of sex, death and identity. Holman’s work has exhibited at Wellesley College, the Advocate Gallery (Los Angeles), the Soady-Campbell Gallery (New York), the San Francisco Public Library, On Main Gallery, The Helen Pitt International Gallery, Charles H. Scott, Exposure, Gallery Gachet, the Roundhouse, Vancouver East Cultural Centre, Artropolis, and Fotobase Galleries (Vancouver). Holman’s portrait project BUTCH: Not like the other girls toured North America and is in its second print edition, published by Caitlin Press, Dagger Editions.
Aryakrishnan Ramakrishnan
Fazal Rizvi
Omer Wasim
Renate Lorenz & Pauline Boudry
Shahana Rajani
Syma Tariq
Sun Wah Centre Rooftop – 268 Keefer St.
We’re back! What better way to kick off QAF 2022 than from the rooftop of our Chinatown digs? Stunning views, phenomenal performances, delicious food and drink, and the launch of Vanishing Act, our curated visual art exhibition curated by Adwait Singh and directed by SD Holman. Check out the exhibition on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Sun Wah Centre, then head up to the rooftop for beats provided by DJ KOTA and special performances curated by Full Circle: First Nations Performance! It’s art. It’s conviviality. And it’s damned queer.
This event is ASL Interpreted.
DJ KOTA is a trans/2s Kanyen’kehá:ka DJ and event coordinator currently living in so-called Vancouver. They’ve been co-producing events and DJing since 2018, with a focus on creating safer night life spaces for QTBIPOC event goers. Driven by their passion for music and community, they hope to contribute to the production of nightlife events that centres and gives platform to Indigiqueer brilliance and joy.
