Emerging Queer Artists Double-Bill at Queer Acts Theatre Festival

Emerging Queer Artists Double-Bill (60 Min, Bus Stop Theatre)

Queer Acts has partnered with Raven Davis as mentor and Jade Byard Peek is our local emerging queer artist! Jade is a  Black and Mi'kmaw Artist working with Raven in a new piece entitled "fried". Fried is a performance piece that confronts the colonial expectation of the presentation of black femme bodies in white spaces,  intersected with conflicting notions trans-femme “passing” Ideals. While engaging conversations of appropriation, harassment, and tokenism, Fried explores the labour, pain, and struggle of maintaining and straightening afro-textured hair, while balancing of culture, work, and personal pressures and expectations. Using the combination of audio, monologue, and the act of straightening hair under time constraints, shows the labour of being a black trans woman in a humid city, depicting the constant assault on black women's bodies, especially their hair.

From Toronto, we have writer/actor François Macdonald who comes to us with his play Aquarius, directed by Sunny Drake. In April 1975, the Aquarius bathhouse in downtown Montreal was firebombed, killing three patrons, two of whom were never identified or claimed. Aquarius tells the story of two men who met in the bathhouse that night. Originally conceived as part of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre’s 2016/17 Emerging Creators Unit, first performed at the 38th Rhubarb Festival in Toronto this past February and shared again at Toronto's Queer Pride Festival last month, Aquarius is an exploration of sexuality, repression, violence and memory as it relates to Montreal in the 1970s and to the recent legalization of homosexuality by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1969. Creator and performer — François Macdonald, Director — Sunny Drake, Dramaturge — Mel Hague, Sound Designer — Jason Thomson

The Bus Stop Theatre

Friday July 14th, 6:30PM

Saturday July 15th, 8:30PM

Sunday July 16th, 2:00PM