FRIDAY: ASL interpretation with Pilar Marsh and Michael Velez — let us know you’re coming! production@freshmeatproductions.org SATURDAY: GALA Performance & Reception! ALL NIGHTS: Post-show receptions every night with DJ Frida Ibarra, go-go dancers, photo booth, drinks & dancing!
A transgender superhero rock opera, world champion gay ballroom, award-winning queer disabled dance pioneers, gender-bending dance-theater, trans comedy and more hit the stage at the 2018 FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL of transgender and queer performance — the nation’s most celebrated trans & queer performance festival (June 14-16 at Z Space, SF). Advance tickets are recommended for this very popular event.
The 17th annual FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL features edgy, exquisite, extraordinary dance, theater and live music … and a cornucopia of regional and world premieres! These award-winning artists are offer loving, bold, beautiful artistry in creative defiance and joy.
Artistic Director Sean Dorsey curated this year’s special lineup and says, “The 2018 FRESH MEAT FESTIVAL is a loving declaration that trans and queer people of color, disabled queers, Black trans artists, elders, and gender-non-conforming artists are BRILLIANT and wise. These artists light the way through the mire of hatred and attacks on our communities, and show us the way to a glorious future where all of us can love and live as our full authentic selves.”
Angelica Medina and Jahaira Fajardo
Alice Sheppard & Laurel Lawson
Sean Dorsey Dance
Breanna Sinclairé
Robbie Tristan & Ernesto Palma
Shawna Virago
Tajah J.
Taller Bombalele
Emcee Annalise Ophelian
Toby MacNutt
The Red Shades
Elena Rose
Charlotte Tate
In Lak'esh Kiskeya Team
Blackberri
THURS JUNE 14
Opening Night
Alice Sheppard
Blackberri
Charlotte Tate
Elena Rose
Robbie Tristan & Ernesto Palma
Sean Dorsey Dance
Shawna Virago
Tajah J
Taller Bombalele
The Red Shades rock opera
Toby MacNutt
emcee Annalise Opelian
Lobby after-party with DJ La Frida
FRI JUNE 15
ASL Interpretation
Alice Sheppard & Laurel Lawson
Angelica Medina & Jahaira Fajardo
Charlotte Tate
Elena Rose
Robbie Tristan & Ernesto Palma
Sean Dorsey Dance
Shawna Virago
Tajah J
Taller Bombalele
The Red Shades rock opera
Toby MacNutt
emcee Annalise Opelian
Lobby after-party with DJ La Frida
SAT JUNE 16
Gala Performance & Reception
Alice Sheppard & Laurel Lawson
In Lak’ech Kiskeya Team
Charlotte Tate
Elena Rose
Robbie Tristan & Ernesto Palma
Sean Dorsey Dance
Shawna Virago
Tajah J
Taller Bombalele
Toby MacNutt
emcee Annalise Opelian
Lobby after-party with DJ La Frida
ACCESS NOTES:
Z Space is a wheelchair accessible theater. Seating is provided on floor level for people using wheelchairs & scooters, as well as anyone who cannot climb stairs (there are stairs starting at row 2 to the back of the theater). Tickets are general seating: accessible seating will always be made available upon request at the door — it’s also super helpful if you’d like to RSVP ahead of time to production@freshmeatproductions.org
Bathrooms are wheelchair accessible and will be welcoming to all genders.
Friday June 15 performance will be ASL interpreted by Pilar Marsh and Michael Velez; reserved ASL seating will be available. If you have questions or would like to request ASL reserved seating Friday June 15, please email: production@freshmeatproductions.org.
Angelica & Jahaira are Bachata dancers and instructors. They are trained by the prestigious Salsamania Dance Company and Inessence Dance Company. In 2015 Jahaira & Angelica won 1st place in the Ladies Latin Dance Division at the World Latin Dance Cup. Since then, Jahaira and Angelica have started teaching Bachata for AnD World Wide Dance Company.
Annalise Ophelian is an award-winning documentary filmmaker (MAJOR!, Diagnosing Difference), queer psychotherapist, and Chihuahua fetishist. She’s currently working on “Looking for Leia,” a documentary about Star Wars fangirls. www.annaliseophelian.com and www.lookingforleia.com
Blackberri is an American Treasure. Some of his recordings are part of the Smithsonian National Folkways Recordings library. He is a Songstylist/Songmaker, poet,writer, photographer, health educator and community advocate. Born in 1945 in Buffalo,NY. Blackberri grew up in Baltimore. He’s written and performed for films including Word is Out, and Looking for Langston, as well as recording the soundtrack for the Haight-Ashbury Radio Collective’s History of SF “Knowing at the Gateway of Gold” which aired on KPFA. This pioneer appeared on the first anthology on Men’s Music “Wall to Roses:songs of changing men, and Gay Men’s Music Strong Love song of gay liberation 1972-1981. His first album Blackberri and Friends “Finally”came out in ’81 and featured his classic”Eat the Rich”. Blackberri has performed music and acted in Marlon Rigg’s film Tongues Untied as well as No Regrets,Anthem, Affirmations, and Black is Black ain’t. He has tour Internationally and has made many radio and TV appearances. This has has made him one of the most visible black queer artivist in the country and now lives in Oakland.
Charlotte Tate was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She moved to the West Coast in the year 2000. From 2002-2006, she performed as a drag king in Eugene, Oregon, with the notable personas Eddie Better and That 80s Night Guy. More recently, she has performed comedy with the Oakland-based Peacock Rebellion, appearing in the 2017 Brouhaha showcase for trans women of color. She also performs in a San Francisco-based queercore/hardcore punk band. A proud mixed-chick and soft-butch dyke, Charlotte enjoys ‘90s riot grrrl punk music, flannel, and spinning yarns about her superhero alter-ego, the Mind Changer.
Toby MacNutt is a queer nonbinary-trans disabled interdisciplinary artist, author, and teacher living in Burlington, VT. Their work often explores questions of embodiment and selfhood. Toby has danced with Murmurations Dance immersive site work “When Women Were Birds”, Lida Winfield, and Heidi Latsky’s “GIMP”, among others; their independent evening work “One, Two” showed locally and internationally. Coming up next: mixed-media performance installation Enter the Void, and poetry collection If Not Skin: collected transformations (Aqueduct Press), both in June 2018. Find out more at tobymacnutt.com or on twitter @tylluan.
Team Kiskeya is the Amateur Bachata performace team of En Lak’ech Dance Academy. Team Kiskeya is the nation’s first Queer and Trans Centered Bachata team. In Lak’ech Dance Academy was founded and is directed by Angelica Medina & Jahaira Fajardo.
Tajah J is a Contemporary R&B, Soul, EDM, and Pop artist. Born and raised in Detroit, Michigan and currently lives in the S.F Bay Area. Her artistry embodies her life’s struggles. Tajah J is a multimedia artist who writes, produces, and engineers her own music. She also is an activist in LGBTQ community and for people who are currently and formerly incarcerated.
Sean Dorsey Dance – Sean Dorsey is a trans/queer choreographer and dancer, and the founder and Artistic Director of Fresh Meat Productions. Recognized as the U.S.’ first acclaimed transgender modern dance choreographer, Dorsey has toured his work to 26 cities across the US. Dorsey was named “San Francisco’s Best Dance Company” (SF Weekly) and was named one of the nation’s “Top 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine. He has been awarded four Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and the Goldie Award for Performance. www.seandorseydance.com
The Red Shades will undoubtedly be the world’s first transgender superhero rock opera. Mixing elements of a rock concert and musical theater, it showcases the talent of trans and queer artists of color. The Red Shades takes place in a unique cross-section of history and fantasy: a mid-sixties San Francisco queer subculture that includes a science fictional superhero community. Ida, a teenage trans girl, runs away from home to escape the traumas of small-town life. She joins a gang of trans superheroes squatting in the Tenderloin and unlocks her own super powers. Together, they use magic to defend their community against the police and other enemies of their liberation.
Elena Rose: Sweet-talking trans mestiza monster queen Elena Rose rode stories out of rural Oregon and hasn’t stopped burning since. An internationally-recognized preacher, poet, and educator, she has performed with the Fresh Meat Festival, Writers Resist, Mangos With Chili, Queer Rebels, Brouhaha, the Speak! Radical Women of Color Media Collective, and Girl Talk: A Trans and Cis Women’s Dialogue, which she co-curated; co-edited the book Queer and Trans Artists of Color, Volume 2, with Nia Levy King; and can be found on Twitter at @burnlittlelight.
Alice Sheppard creates movement that challenges conventional understandings of disabled and dancing bodies. Engaging with disability arts, culture and history, Alice attends to the complex intersections of disability, gender, and race. Her work has been commissioned by CRIPSiE and MOMENTA Dance Company. Alice is the founder and artistic lead of Kinetic Light. Alice studied with Kitty Lunn and made her debut with Infinity Dance Theater. She joined AXIS Dance Company. Alice has danced in projects with Ballet Cymru, GDance, and Marc Brew in the United Kingdom. In the United States, she has worked with Marjani Forté, MBDance, Infinity Dance Theater, and Steve Paxton. Alice has also performed as a solo artist and academic speaker throughout the United States.
Laurel Lawson found in dance a pursuit that combined her lifelong love of athleticism and art. After her first modern dance class, she fell in love with the challenge and creative discipline required and chose to pursue a professional career in dance. Laurel joined Full Radius Dance Company in January of 2004, and has been privileged to perform in Atlanta and around the world both with the company and with other projects. In addition, Laurel is a lifelong advocate, a public speaker, a member of the USA Women’s Developmental Sled Hockey team, and a product designer and co-founder of an engineering consultancy based in Decatur, Georgia.
Taller Bombalele Ensemble is an acclaimed bomba performance ensemble directed by Denise Solis and taught by Julia Cepeda (granddaughter of Puerto Rican Bomba Patriarch Don Rafael Cepeda Atiles). Denise Solis is also founder/director of Las Bomberas de la Bahia. Bombalele Ensemble has performed at festivals and venues in the Bay Area including Galeria de La Raza SF, Studio Grand Oakland, Brava SF, Napa Valley College, CIIS in SF, and UC Santa Barbara. Taller Bombalele promotes our Afro Puerto Rican roots music and dance tradition of Bomba, by teaching its history, dance, music, and songs through classes, lectures, workshops, and Bombazos to continue to preserve and expand this form of expression in community.
Robbie Tristan & Ernesto Palma are World Champion and Gay Games Gold Medalist Same Sex Ballroom dancers. They have been featured in the New York Times, Good Day LA, NBC Raw, LA Times Magazine and the LA Weekly. Tristan is the founder of Dance of America Foundation, a nonprofit that brings Ballroom Dance projects to at risk and LGBT youth. They live in New York City. www.robbietristan.com and www.ernesto-palma.com
Shawna Virago is a transgender trickster celebrated for her striking lyric-based songs. Her music twists together folk, punk and trans-americana, offering raw observations about survival in a predatory world, queer love, sticking up for the underdog, and gender rebels. Virago has performed as an out transwoman since the early 1990’s. Virago’s music has been profiled in publications, including Bitch Magazine, No Depression, OUT, The Advocate, SF Weekly and Curve Magazine, and on left-of-the-dial radio. www.shawnavirago.com
