Vancouver Queer Arts Festival 2020 Announced- Something WICKED This Way Comes...

The 12th annual Queer Arts Festival (QAF), Vancouver's artist-run, professional, multi-disciplinary roister of queer arts, culture and history, takes place July 16 - 26, 2020.

Art keeps us connected during the age of social distancing. We have re-imagined the festival to make sure you get your Queer art fix from the safety of your own home. Please visit queerartsfestival.com to find out how you can attend all of our events remotely!

QAF's Wicked runs 11 days at our digital venue, coming soon. Highlights include Jonny Sopotiuk's visual arts curation; choreographer Noam Gagnon's raucously vulnerable Swan Song, This Crazy Show; Indigenous Burlesque with Virago Nation's Too Spirited; and the latest offering from non-binary drag collective The Darlings.

There's no place like home for the Wicked Witch of the West, green by devilment and through her magical aberrance. QAF 2020 forsakes the yellow brick road that leads only to a man behind a curtain colonizing our desires. Instead, QAF revels in the quintessentially queer traditions of scandal and excess with visual art, performance, theatre, music, dance and literary events!

QAF's Wicked reimagines identity politics, exposing the implications of homonormativity as erasure. This past decade has seen the mainstreaming of gay; sexual difference wins approval so long as it is palatable, marketable, and doesn't stray too far from bourgeois notions of taste and morality. The commodification of queer experience is inextricably linked to the pathologization of the queer body, where medical and sociological interventions adjudicate which anatomies and passions are accepted as authentic.

EVENT HIGHLIGHTS INCLUDE:

a-? Art Party! | Cinq-à-Sept Festival Opening | Thu Jul 16, 5 - 7PM PST
QAF's opening: Luxuriate in a cinq-à-sept afternoon delight to come together with visual art curator Jonny Sopotiuk, Wicked Visual Art tour w/ guest artists, and a gallery of intimate friends old and new. Wonderfully Wicked

a-? Wicked: Curated Visual Arts Exhibition | Thu Jul 16 - Sun Jul 26 | Visual Art

a-? Pride in Art Community Exhibition | Thu Jul 16 - Sun Jul 26 | Visual Art

a-? Too Spirited | Fri Jul 17, 7PM PST | Indigenous Burlesque
Embrace your too-muchness with bombastic burlesque brought to you by the badass babes of Virago Nation.

a-? Rupture Probe: Queer Inquiries & Remediations | Sat Jul 18, 7PM PST | Media Art Screening
Recent queer shorts rupture normative notions of gender, pleasure, and activism, curated in partnership with VIVO Media Arts Centre.

a-? Return to Sodom North | Sun Jul 19, 7PM PST | VIVO Media Art Screening
90's Queer Video Out & Uncensored. Vancouver queer media artists raged back against the malignment and suppression of queer lived realities and representations of desire.

a-? A Night of Storytelling | Wed Jul 22, 7PM PST | Literary Readings
Curated by Danny Ramadan, readings by local, national, and international writers.

a-? Underground Absolute Fiction | Thu Jul 23, 7PM PST | Speculative Theatre
An immersive play-meets-punk-concert, inspired by the Polish "home theatre." Written by Anais West and co-produced by Queer Arts Festival and The Frank Theatre.

a-? The Darlings | Fri Jul 24, 7PM PST | Drag Performance
Multidisciplinary performance by non-binary drag collective The Darlings: Continental Breakfast, PM, Rose Butch, and Maiden China.

a-? A Conversation on Queer Mentorship | Sat Jul 25, 12PM PST | Lunch Discourse
Hiromi Goto and Erica Isomura explore the nuances of intergenerational mentorship as queer POC writers.

a-? This Crazy Show | Sat Jul 25, 7PM PST | Sun July 26, 2PM PST | Dance Performance
In his Swan Song, contemporary dance legend Noam Gagnon sashays the fine line between pain and pleasure in a fetishization of something glamorous and beautifully twisted: a monster beautified.

a-? Glitter is Forever: Pajama Party | Sun Jul 26 | 8PM PST til late | Closing Binge
Get your dress jammies on, grab a drink and binge-watch the entire Queer Arts Festival with us (take it all in!!). Expect surprises and special prizes.