marke@sfbg.com
QUEER It’s not even Pride yet, but the city is brimming with so many vibrant queer affairs that many of us may feel over the rainbow already. I feel hot pink and exhausted! But the plethora of blowouts with a Q is just more evidence — like those rainbow flags flying along Market Street — that truly we live in Homo Disneyland, an Epcot Gomorrah of creative fecundity. Strap yourself onto the June boom and ride it all the way through with the following.
NATIONAL QUEER ARTS FESTIVAL
Now in the second week of its monthlong explosion of performance, happenings, and multimedia extravaganzas, NQAF is coming on strong with some mighty keen players. “QIY — Queer It Yourself: Tools for Survival,” a collective art show and “laboratory for creating a sustainable queer culture,” which opened at SOMArts on June 4 and runs through June 24 set the bright green creative tone, and similar programs like One Love Oceana’s “Sustaining Community” — a dance interpretation of queer Asian-Pacific Islander narratives of survival (June 16 and 17) — plus the stimulating “Eco Sexual Queer Porn Night” (June 16), Annie Sprinkle and Elizabeth Stephens’ “Eco Sex Manifesto” art exhibit at the Center for Sex and Culture (June 17-19), and the “Dirt Star 2011: Take Root” art show at the Tenderloin National Forest (through June/19) follow sustainable suit.
Kickass bear artist Noel has a show up at Magnet called, appropriately enough, “Bearmusement” (through June 30) that highlights his gamer-like drawing style and “Queer Rebels of the Harlem Renaissance” (July 1 and 2) brings to life the bawdy characters of that great period. And all the cool kids will surely be at curator Jesse Hewitt’s “Like This” (Fri/10 and Sat/11), which showcases performances of Maryam Farnaz Rostami’s “Persepolis, Texas,” Peter Max Lawrence’s “Memories of Us (With Someone Else Playing You),” and “Toxic” by the Minna Harri Experience. And don’t miss young artist Rene Capone hosting a staged reading from his graphic novel The Legend of Hedgehog Boy (Sat/11) at the LGBT Center.
Through July 2, various times, prices, and locations. www.queerculturalcenter.org
QUEER WOMEN OF COLOR FESTIVAL
This exuberant and important institution of inclusion — winner of a Guardian Best of the Bay award for “Best Voluptuous Visibility” — is on fire this year. Now in its seventh year, the fest theme is “Igniting the Intersections” with “38 new films that kindle the tenacious connections of community, family, and romance!” Particularly interesting-looking to me are Truc Thanh Nguyen’s genderqueer Asian unemployment romp Help Wanted (Sat/11); Michele Randleston’s steamy butch house party flick Ready (Fri/10); Meja Tyehimba double punch, with lakeside fantasy Cantaloupe (Fri/10), followed by jazz-trumpeter-life-choice drama In the Key of D (Sat/11); and the too-cute shy-girl romance of Narissa Lee’s Bus Pass (Fri/10). There are like 30 other films I wanna see, too.
June 10–12, various times and prices. Brava Theatre, 2789 24th St., SF. www.qwocmap.com.
SHAME SPIRAL
Young queers used to be all about Gay Shame (www.gayshamesf.org), protesting the corporatization of Pride and the co-opting of the LGBT community by shady big businesses to move product. Now we party! (Don’t worry, it’s OK to do both.) This club blast brings a host of underground party flavors together for queer “faux-rave” insanity, with DJs Richie panic, Key&Kite, Natalie Nuxx, Andre, Juanita More, and more. “No cameras, no proof — cross your fingers, not your legs,” they advise.
Fri/10, 9 p.m., $10. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com
HEROES WITH BLING
Sharp-eyed photographer-stylist duo Jose A. Guzman-Colon and Marianne Larochelle captured the city’s glittering drageratti in their recent lavish photo book Glam Gender (www.glamgender.com). They’re teaming up with outrageous mosaic artist Michael J. Kruzich, who also doesn’t shy much away from gender illusionists as subject matter, for this arty tribute to our man-handed queens of the nightlife. Warning: you’ll probably be chewing on strands of Dynel at the sure-to-be wiggy opening.
Sat/11, 6 p.m.-8 p.m., free (show continues through June 29). Market Street Gallery, 1554 Market, SF. www.marketstreetgallery.com
MR. AND MISS GAY SAN FRANCISCO PAGEANT
After all the drama over the Emperor and Empress competition earlier this year — the first real competition in ages, and one of the contestants still isn’t speaking to me — here’s hoping the Mr. and Miss Gay SF Pageant doesn’t draw too much blood, yet has the same fire. Outgoing winners Moses Garcia and Iyanne Paongo will crown our new representatives to the world, raising charitable funds that are more needed than ever. Come for the show!
Sat/11, 7 p.m.–11 p.m., $25 advance/$30. Hotel Kabuki, 1625 Post, SF. www.imperialcouncilsf.org, Facebook: Gay San Francisco Pageant
FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL
Artistic director Sean Dorsey’s four-night dance and music spectacular, part of the National Queer Arts festival, is hauling out the star power in its 10th year. Wild and kiki dance crew Vogue Evolution drops in, as do the GAPA Men’s Chorus, poetic New Mexican acrobat Cohdi Harrell, well-named trapeze artist Emily Leap, writer Amir Rabiyah, World Championship same-sex ballroom duo Robbie Tristan and Willem de Vries, the transcendent techno-hulu stylings of Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, and of course Dorsey’s own fab troupe.
June 16-18, 8 p.m.; Sun/18 7 p.m. $15–<\d>$20 sliding scale, 450 Florida, SF. www.freshmeatproductions.org