We are looking for performance work in whatever form YOU make it, ie: dancing, reading, reciting, reporting, researching, laying down, crying, singing, etc.
THIS IS WHAT I WANT 2011 – Call for Proposals
PRODUCED BY: JESSE HEWIT, RACHAEL DICHTER, AND THEOFFCENTER
CURATED BY: AMARA TABOR-SMITH, JIZ LEE, KEITH HENNESSY, AND MICHELLE TEA
JUNE 29TH AND 30TH
*an official event of the 2011 National Queer Arts Festival
Last summer, THIS IS WHAT I WANT 2010 brought together 17 Bay Area performing artists and dared them to stage their s3xual desires…or something like that.
From the first release of the curatorial statement and call for artists, this project was charged. Within this theme (and within the consideration of performing this theme) there is density, trigger, confusion, risk, trickery, lying, and some telling of some serious truths. As curator, I stumbled through extensive discourse about this event; fielding complex and perhaps impossible questions about the intent and social necessity of such a project. Though I was repeatedly confronted by the possibility that a show about staging s3xual desires was tired or had been done, I always came back around to a steady notion of ” yes…it’s been done…but not like this.”
This event exists within an implicit understanding that the s3xual is both constructed and essential; that the way we fukc or don’t fukc is based on how much money we have, who we are afraid of, which tab00s we hurl ourselves toward and why, what feels good, what makes us feel dead and like nothing, what our friends like, what our parents fear, what we want our children to become, what we need RIGHT NOW. In this discourse, we confront our contradictions and do whatever they demand that we do.
Last year, the participating artists engaged at various levels through meet-ups, online forums, and also a whole lot of very personally sought silence. It was weird and it was sprawling, but there was something very sharp and very clear about the indisputable urgency driving the whole thing. We completely sold out both shows, garnered featured press in the SF Chronicle, and all walked away knowing some things we hadn’t known before about ourselves, about each other, and about how this topic still resonates, terrifies, inspires, and frees us up. We are planning for a repeat occurrence.
This year, integrating our s3xualities and s3xual wants into our lived identities is becoming more and more necessary for many of us…and it is hard. S3xually speaking, we are all at a strange and shape-shifting moment in our collective histories. Our lived choices are still constantly weighed in on by current trends in s3xual self-expression, legislation, risk factors, gender-fukcing, new drugs, new media, and a pervasive and very American push to know and answer to our selves, and therefore, we have some distinct questions on the table. So…THIS IS WHAT I WANT is back on the table too. And the prompt is simple.
Once again: we invite you to stage your desires, engage with the choice to perform s3xuality, and in some way, just show us what you want.
Some catalyst thoughts and questions tossed around by past artists have been:
-How/Why do we externalize our desires?
-How do we want our s3xual bodies to be seen? And, of course, do we? and Why or why not?
-How do we live with and incorporate time/trauma/past into our s3xualities and what of s3xualizing past non-consentual s3x acts or other traumas?
-What is intimacy and does it augment or prove barrier to s3xuality?
-Whose s3xualities/desires do we mirror our own after and how do those portrayals and stories affect us?
-Is making performance work about s3xuality dead? Cliche? Potent? Where do these judgments come from? Is the general canon full of work that is not rigorous enough?
-How do systems of oppression working on queers, s3x workers, people of color, poor folks, and folks who are differently abled (and the media misrepresentation therein) serve to empower those s3xualities? How do they become challenged or fractured by such forces?
-How (if at all) have trans bodies and transgendered-centered s3xualities and desires been cast to represent a more progressive, colorful and imaginative world of s3x acts and experiences? How does this nurture or do damage to these bodies and s3xualities?
-Why is inc3st hot?
-How do we come to be ghosts in our own s3xualities; haunted by them, but not in them?
-What are our s3xual memory crutches and why do we long for our youth so often in our lived s3xualities?
-What does it take to performatively undo a s3xual tab00?
-S3xually speaking, what are we ashamed of and why?
-Why do we often want specifically what we cannot have?
-In what ways are our s3xual profiles formed by our socio-economic histories?
-How does s3x heal?
THIS IS WHAT I WANT 2011 is an official bright and shiny centerpiece of the 2011 National Queer Arts Festival, and will take place on Wednesday and Thursday evenings, June 29th and 30th at 8pm at the Garage at 975 Howard. It will be produced by Jesse Hewit, Rachael Dichter, and THEOFFCENTER. The technical director will be Wolfgang Wachalovsky and the marketing director/publicity designer will be Ernesto Sopprani.
This years festival will be curated local queer literary queen Michelle Tea, porn trailblazer and political visionary Jiz Lee, choreographer and dance community teacher and guru Amara Tabor-Smith, and Bessie Award-winning dance and performance artist Keith Hennessy.
We are looking for performance work in whatever form YOU make it, ie: dancing, reading, reciting, reporting, researching, laying down, crying, singing, etc.
Submissions for THIS IS WHAT I WANT 2011 will be hungrily accepted Jan 17th through February 15th, and our decisions will be sent out by March 1st.
All submissions (or questions) should be sent to jesse.hewit@gmail.com by February 15th at 5pm.
We are asking each submission to consist of the following:
1) piece description…which can, of course, change over he course of your process (no more than 500 words)
2) artist bio (no more than 500 words)
3) expected duration (we are looking for works between 10 and 30 minutes long…but push us if need be)
4) why you are applying (no more than 500 words)
We encourage the making of new works for this series, and once again, we are looking for works that stage your desires, engage with the choice to perform s3xuality, and in some way, show us what you want.
You can be as specific or vague as you like. We think that there are benefits to both approaches, especially as we are encouraging the making of new work that may be in developmental stages.
Lastly, if you would like to be considered for this year’s festival, please be ready for discourse. We are curating far fewer pieces this year, in order to focus more on the development of the work, organize work-in-progress showings, give artists the opportunity to make longer works, and to enhance the structure and focus on the post-show discussions, which will now be 50% of each evening’s happenings. There will be a small stipend offered to each participating artist.
More information here.
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