PROUD VOICES Interactive Queer Audio Festival Returns for Pride Month

Part walking tour of queered-owned, independent businesses and part audible exhibition of curated queer art, Proud Voices is a unique, immersive way of celebrating work of the queer community in Brooklyn.

How it works: When audience members sign up for the event, they'll be given access to the Proud Voices map of the queer-owned and queer-friendly businesses in the neighborhood taking part. As audience members arrive at these locations, they scan the QR code in the window of the featured business to play the curated queer artist and their audio track. Be it song, poem, or spoken word. The businesses range in services and styles. Audience members are free to engage with the business as much or as little as they wish. Approximate experience duration: 60-90 minutes.

Artists involved include: Lily Ali-Oshatz, a Brooklyn-based composer. Lesbian Herstory Archives, an organisation that gathers, preserves and provides access to records of Lesbian lives and activities. Staceyann Chin, a spoken-word poet, performing artist and LGBT rights political activist. Kyle Carrero Lopez, award-winning published poet and co-founder of LEGACY. Maia Macdonald, a Colombian-American producer, songwriter, and artist, based in Brooklyn. Olaiya Olayimi, an anti disciplinary artist/educator/and organizer who centers womxxn of the African diaspora in her works of art. Soo Intoit, a trans, Asian-American, interdisciplinary artist. Julia Weldon an indie-folk pop musician and actor.

June 1st - 30th 2021. Park Slope, BK. Participants have the option to donate or experience Proud Voices for free. After a successful inaugural season last year in West Village, Proud Voices is now international, with festivals in Austin, Texas and Auckland, New Zealand.

Proud Voices has been designed with safety in mind, audiences can participate at their own pace with their pod, partner, or by themselves. For audiences who'd prefer to participate from home, a digital option featuring all the queer art (and maps) from each festival location; Brooklyn, Austin and Auckland, will be also available online.

Proud Voices is a Butch Mermaid Production. Butch Mermaid Productions believes that Theatre is more than a physical building. We are reimagining the live experience for ordinary and extraordinary times.

Proud Voices is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council. Brooklyn Arts Council. New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.

For more information visit www.proudvoices.gay.