Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and CounterPulse Theater Presents TOMORROW WE INHERIT THE EARTH: THE QUEER INTIFADA

Co-produced with CounterPulse Theater, Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth: The Queer Intifada, a multimedia performance piece that dives into the junction of horror, speculative fiction and storytelling. Inspired by historical events in the Muslim world and Islamophobia in modern day America and Europe, this collaboratively devised performance merges together fashion, music, video, movement and poetry to reveal a queer and Muslim centered future.

"In performance, creative collaboration becomes a form of political solidarity", states Artistic Director Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, "As artists we use Islam as a springboard for the imagination, taking inspiration from its mythos, mysticism and the evolution of its politicization in order to envision a radically different world where black and brown bodies take center stage."

Tomorrow We Inherit the Earth: The Queer Intifada emerged out of a collaboration commissioned by the San Francisco Art Commission's Sanctuary City Series in September of 2018. Queer Muslim Futurist artists came together for an evening of performance, video, and fashion capped by a party at The STUD, a historical San Francisco gay bar, featuring DJs from LA club night Discostan. Artists who participated in this one night event decided merge their skills and create a single cohesive piece, using the future as a blank canvas in order to reveal what a queer and Muslim resistance movement might look like.

In this performance, the world has entered its third major intifada, an uprising of global magnitude. Queer rebel fighters in the Muslim world are frustrated with the failures of past heterosexual leaders, they rise up and begin a long battle to overthrow Western intervention in the region, achieving what many in the past have failed to do. In so doing they inspire a revolution in the United States, unifying black and bodies beyond religious and cultural boundaries,"People who have been marginalized and pushed to the side will eventually come into their power, we are in many ways inheriting a very toxic earth that we must heal", states performance artist and collaborator Crystal Mason.

While the successes of the revolution continue to be lauded, its losses have been painfully felt and a small band of guerrilla fighters attempt the seemingly impossible.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (Artistic Director and Performance Artist) is a visual and performance artist, drag queen - who goes by the Alias Faluda Islam - as well as curator of mixed Pakistani, Lebanese and Iranian descent. Bhutto takes on histories of revolution, resistance and resilience and queers them using his body as a filter through a multi-media practice based primarily in the realm of future storytelling. Bhutto was curatorial resident at SOMArts Cultural Center where he co-curated, The Third Muslim: Queer and Trans Muslim Narratives of Resistance and Resilience.

CounterPulse provides space and resources for emerging artists and cultural innovators, serving as an incubator for the creation of socially relevant, community-based art and culture. CounterPulse acts as a catalyst for art and action; creating a forum for the open exchange of art and ideas, sparking transformation in our communities and our society. CounterPulse works towards a world that celebrates diversity of race, class, cultural heritage, artistic expression, ability, gender identity, and sexual orientation. We strive to create an environment that is physically and economically accessible to everyone.

Photo Credit: Cece Carpio

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