The wildly-popular FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL of Trans & Queer Performance is back with edgy, exquisite, extraordinary dance, theater and live music … and is brimming with world premieres!
Voguing superstars, Deaf theater visionaries, queer Salsa champions, Trans-americana music, taiko, hip-hop, comedy, South Asian contemporary dance, Bomba music and dance, and much MORE!
The 23rd annual FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL is thrilled to premiere new works commissioned especially for the festival by our 2024 FRESH WORKS! Commissioned artists: LBXX, Christopher Smith, Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi and Mark Travis Rivera. See our festival trailer here!
The festival lineup also features: Batey Tambó, Ka’Lonji Moschino Escada, Iman, Ishami Dance Company, Lottie Riot, In Lak’ech Dance Monarchs, Queer Taiko, Sean Dorsey Dance, Shawna Virago, femme-cee Churro Nomi and more!
KN95 masks will be provided and required. ASL Interpretation will be provided at all performances. Z Space theater is wheelchair accessible and has all-gender bathrooms.
Program A Friday 6/21 8pm (with ASL interpretation) Program A Saturday 6/22 2pm (with ASL interpretation) Program B Saturday 6/22 8pm (with ASL interpretation) Program B Sunday 6/23 2pm (with ASL interpretation)
Z Space is close to a variety of public transportation lines, most notably the 16th and Mission BART stop (approximately 9 short-side blocks away), and the 22, 27, and 33 MUNI bus lines.
Parking:
In the neighborhood immediately around Z Space, as in much of San Francisco, parking is a challenge during the day. If you are planning on parking on the street, please allow at least 30 minutes to find a space, and be sure to carefully read all restrictions on street signs and parking meters. Street parking is plentiful beginning around 4:00 pm each day and on weekends. There is a paid parking lot (operated by UCSF) at Harrison and 15th Street which has metered visitor spaces and located approximately three blocks from Z Space.
ALL-NEW THIS YEAR: COMMUNITY CLASSES!
To kick off the 2024 Festival, Fresh Meat is excited to announce a new series of classes on Thursday June 13 at the nearby Joe Goode Annex, featuring:
For more information & registration, visit freshmeatproductions.org.
ACCESS INFORMATION:
Z Space’s entrance, lobby, bathrooms and audience seating areas are wheelchair accessible.
The front row of theater seats are at floor level; all other rows of seating are on risers and require climbing stairs. The front row will be reserved for accessible seating, wheelchair users, mobility-device users, and people who would like to use extra-wide, armless chairs.
The front row of seating features armless chairs; all other chairs in the theater have non-moveable arms.
If you need to reserve accessible seating, please email us at boxoffice@zspace.org. Please specify your access need (eg. if you’re a wheelchair user coming with one companion; if you need an extra-wide, armless chair; if you need to be seated in the ASL seating area).
Z Space’s bathrooms are all-gender.
There will not be a scent-reduced seating section for this event
Identification (ID) is not required to purchase or pick up tickets.
Each program will feature ASL Interpretation: please let us know when you’re coming (email melissa@freshmeatproductions.org)
COVID SAFETY PROTOCOLS FOR THIS EVENT:
KN95 masks will be provided and required for this event.
Audience is required to be KN95 masked for the entirety of their time inside the building. Our staff will provide KN95 masks to everyone before they enter the building (unless someone’s disability, chronic illness or health condition means they cannot wear a mask).
By attending the Fresh Meat Festival, you agree to the following:
You do not have any signs of contagious illness (COVID or otherwise), including pink eye, that aren’t fully explained by a non-contagious health condition that you have
If you have had COVID, it’s been at least 10 days since your first symptoms or positive test if you were asymptomatic.
Batey Tambó is a Bay Area-based, women of color-led cultural group grounded in the centuries-old musical tradition of Afro-Indigenous Puerto Rican Bomba, directed by Denise Solis (Bombera de la Bahia) and Julia Caridad Cepeda (Julia Danse). Batey Tambó’s mission is to facilitate a discussion through teaching and sharing space for bomba Bateys (communal spaces) that intervene discussion and practice on racial, gendered and geopolitical contexts by offering an opportunity for dialogue. Batey Tambo offers space for imagining more fluid roles in the tradition of Bomba in facilitating a Batey that is inclusive and open to all gender expressions and taking on the roles that speak to your soul regardless of gender, we value keeping alive the morals of the tradition of Bomba and learning it with humility and respect in honor of our cultural and life elders, ancestors and liberation.
SEAN DORSEY DANCE is a San Franciso-based all-queer/trans/gender-nonconforming contemporary dance ensemble — featuring Artistic Director Sean Dorsey, Brandon Graham, Héctor Jaime, David Le and Nol Simonse. The company has toured to 35+ cities across the US and internationally. This is SDD’s 20th Anniversary Season. Dorsey is the founder and Artistic Director of Fresh Meat Productions.
In Lak’ech Dance Academy’s Founders Angelica & Jahaira created the organization with the intention of using Afro-Latin dance as a tool for self-care and healing. In Lak’ech Dance creates a safe space for LGBTQ2S+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer, Two Spirited, +) people to claim their identity with pride while reaching personal goals through dance.
This Deaf BIPOC Southern Queen has quite a way with her hands, and she always has something to Say! All.the way from TX and now a Oakland resident, she will Blaze the stage and show u a shimmy good time, it’s IMAN!!
Shawna Virago is one of America’s first openly transgender women to tour nationally, performing as her true self since the early nineties. She is a pioneer in the pre-millennial punk scene, and is celebrated for her firebrand fusion of punk and country and her striking lyrics.
Deaf since birth, Chicago born, Christopher Smith began his education at Whitney Young High School, where he began to study dance. Since then, Christopher has pursued a career, as a dancer, choreographer, and actor. As a dancer, he began dancing with the Sixth Sense performers in Chicago. Mr. Smith largely credits its director, Charlotte Akinsonon, and its choreographer, the late, Roscoe Gillenwater, as integral to his training As an actor, Christopher has worked with The National Theatre of the Deaf, the Sunshine Too Theatre Company, Deaf West Theatre (in Los Angeles), Centerlight Theatre (in Chicago), Chicago Dramatists’ Workshop, the Intiman Theater (in Seattle),
Film work includes “The Compensation” starring Michele A. Bank and directed by Zeinabu Irene Davis.
Lottie Riot is a square-bear butch dyke from Minnesota USA, whose likes include astrophysics and cuddling. People think she’s the love child of Paula Poundstone and Neil deGrasse Tyson. People might not be wrong!
Churro Nomi aka Eric Garcia is equal parts devised theater artist, dance filmmaker, drag queen, and community organizer, with a penchant for queer maximalism. He creates immersive and site-specific performances that straddle nostalgia, radical futurism, high theatrics, and connection. He works towards accessing the full potential of bodies in space, performer and audience alike.
Eric, also known as Churro Nomi, hosts & produces Clutch The Pearls, a monthly drag cabaret in San Francisco’s Mission District.
He has created works with OddKnock Productions, Amie Dowling, 13th Floor, Sharp & Fine, FACT/SF, The Anata Project, LEVYdance, Project Thrust, Catherine Galasso, Arletta Anderson/Adam Smith, students of the University of San Francisco, the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, and many others.
Eric proudly serves as Managing Director with Fresh Meat Productions, Sean Dorsey Dance, and the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival
Dane Figueroa Edidi: Dubbed the Ancient Jazz Priestess of Mother Africa, Lady Dane is a Black Nigerian, Cuban, Indigenous, American Performance Artist, Author, Poet, Educator, Advocate, producer, a Helen Hayes Award winning Playwright (Klytmnestra: An Epic Slam Poem), a 2021 Helen Merrill Award Winner, Film Maker, Advocate, Dramaturg, a 3x Helen Hayes Award nominated choreographer (2016, 2018, 2023), and a Princess Grace Honoria Award winner. She is the co-editor/co-founder/ Co-director of the Black Trans Prayer Book.
She is the curator and associate producer of Longwharf Theatre’s Black Trans Women At The Center: An Evening of Short Plays and is an artistic ensemble member of the company as well.
Meet LBXX (@lunchboxx___), a dynamic force in our local community! As a Black queer hip hop performer, DJ, and activist, LBXX co-founded the @__Makeroom DJ collective and pioneered Project Save the Gworls—a fundraising initiative offering rapid response support to BIPOC LGBTQIA+ and TGNC individuals during crises. Renowned for high-energy performances, and uplifting DJ sets, LBXX embodies the spirit of creativity and positive change.
Mark Travis Rivera is a Puerto Rican queer femme disabled creative entrepreneur, choreographer, coach, speaker, writer, and the CEO of The Professional Storyteller. He is based in Atlanta, GA.
Ishami Dance Company is a South Asian Contemporary dance company whose mission is to explore, unite and amplify the diverse voices, stories and histories of the South Asian diaspora and dismantle social and cultural constructs. Through their work they combine movement, music and aesthetics of Western forms like modern, contemporary and jazz with South Asian dance forms like Bharatnaytam, Kathak, Garba and Chhau. They create works to spark conversations through art.
Performances include an evening length original production titled “Pehchaan” as well as several repertory works. Through their performances, dance workshops and intensives, and their blog “Intermission” they invite their audiences to engage with their work and vision and celebrate the intersectionality of their identities.
Ishami was founded by Amit Patel & Ishika Seth in the unceded lands of the Ohlone-Muwekma tribes (Fremont, CA) and consists of several dance artists with unique and varied dance backgrounds and experiences.
Ka’Lonji Moschino Escada is a DJ/producer, a Ballroom mother, a showgirl, and a Community activist. She was b from Dallas, Texas. In May of 2021 she graduated with her B.A. in Biology, and will be going to medical school. She is an Afro-Latina Trans woman use all of her fabulous gifts to continuously gag folks!
Queer Taiko, formed in 2013 by Kristy Aki Oshiro (they/them), is a multi-cultural and intergenerational group of LGBTQIA+ individuals and allies committed to building community, representation and visibility through Japanese taiko drumming.
SHAWNA VIRAGO is a songwriter celebrated for her striking lyric-based songs. Her songs twist together folk, alt-country and punk. Virago was one of the nation’s first openly transgender women to perform and tour nationally, and has performed as an out transwoman since the early 1990’s. shawnavirago.com
Natasha is a stand-up comedian and humorous writer who moved to San Francisco last century and hasn’t been pushed out of the City (yet). She likes puns, wordplay, and portmanteaus, and enjoys weaving them into jokes and comical bits about being trans, being a mom, and being alone with her thoughts. Some audiences don’t know what to make of her, so it’s a good thing she’s a self-made lady. When she’s not making scores of people laugh on stage, she’s plugging away at her blog. Natasha’s comedy is so good it’s not even funny.
SEAN DORSEY DANCE is a San Franciso-based all-queer/trans/gender-nonconforming contemporary dance ensemble — featuring Artistic Director Sean Dorsey, Brandon Graham, Héctor Jaime, David Le and Nol Simonse. The company has toured to 35+ cities across the US and internationally. This is SDD’s 20th Anniversary Season. Dorsey is the founder and Artistic Director of Fresh Meat Productions.
