Join us at the Heartwood Community Cafe on Friday, June 20 for The Voice of the Century, a cabaret fundraiser for the frank theatre company hosted by the one and only Delica C as the greatest operatic diva of the twentieth century, Maria Callas.
An evening of writing and music, featuring Mark Bentley Cohen, C. E. Gatchalian, Alex Leslie and Amal Rana and musicians Rachel Iwaasa, Joel Klein and Kim Villagante, with the fabulous DJ Denise holding fort!
This event is a fundraiser for When the Sun Comes Out, Canada’s first-ever lesbian opera, which the frank is co-presenting with the Queer Arts Festival in Toronto as part of World Pride in June. Plus a 20/20 raffle and a silent auction, including the sale of the painting from our March show Ga Ting, proceeds for which will go to the Rainbow Refugee Committee.
THE VOICE OF THE CENTURY! A Screaming Weenie Cabaret
317 East Broadway (click here for map)
Tickets $10 at Brown Paper Tickets or at the door
Trailer here.
Can’t make it but still want to support us?
Consider purchasing some tickets to enable folks from the Rainbow Refugee Committee to attend. These folks are BGLT/queer refugees or refugee claimants adjusting to their new lives in Canada, and what better way to welcome them than to provide them with some queer-themed art and entertainment in a safe, supportive space?
Our Featured Artists:
MARK BENTLEY COHEN
Mark Bentley Cohen is a sex-positive educator, writer, speaker, facilitator and counsellor. As one of the very few openly bisexual married fathers out there, Mark has deep insights into this often misunderstood sexual orientation. He runs a variety of support groups for bisexuals, has written a book on his experiences of coming out, Confessions of a Bisexual Husband, tours his one-man show Bi, Hung, Fit … and Married on the topic, and writes a popular blog.
DELICA C
When Delica isn’t strapped into a corset she is a boy named Tristan. While drag performance is a relatively new avenue for Tristan, he has been on stage most of his life, staring with singing when he was six. Having studied Classical Voice at VCC and UBC he currently sings professionally with four local choirs, including Vancouver’s newest classically trained queer choir, Cor Flammae. In his time away from the stage, Tristan works as a hair stylist on Vancouver’s west side.
DJ DENISE
DJ Denise is one of the leading female DJ’s in Vancouver. Breaking boundaries for Female DJ’s around the world.. producing her own beats, promoting events, recruiting new artists, booking events & hosting two weekly radio shows in Vancouver every Tuesday. QueerFMReloaded at CITR 101.9fm (8am-10:30am) with UBC & Urban Renewal Project at Co-op Radio 100.5fm (10pm-12am).
C. E. GATCHALIAN
C.E. Gatchalian is a playwright, fiction writer, poet, editor, and teacher based in Vancouver. An alumnus of the University of British Columbia’s Creative Writing program (BFA, 1996; MFA, 2002), he is the author of three books: Motifs & Repetitions & Other Plays (2003), which was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award; a chapbook of poetry, tor/sion (2005); and Broken, a suite of one-act plays. He has been Playwright-in-Residence at the Firehall Arts Centre, Artist-in-Residence at the University of British Columbia, and resident writer at the Berton House Writers’ Retreat in Dawson City, YT. His work has been produced on stages in Vancouver, Toronto, Winnipeg and New Zealand, as well as radio (CBC) and television (the Bravo! Channel). In 2013 he was awarded the prestigious Dayne Ogilvie Prize, awarded annually by The Writers’ Trust of Canada to a Canadian LGBT writer of merit.
RACHEL IWAASA
Hailed in the press as a “keyboard virtuoso” (Georgia Straight) with the “emotional intensity” to take a piece “from notes on a page to a stunning work of art” (Victoria Times Colonist), pianist Rachel Kiyo Iwaasa has performed as soloist and chamber musician in Canada, the United States and Germany. Known for bold and innovative concerts, Rachel combines her warmth and curiosity to touch the hearts and minds of audiences, whether she is playing Beethoven and Schumann or Ligeti and Saariaho. She is currently the Acting Artistic Director of the Queer Arts Festival.
JOEL KLEIN
Born on a wheat farm near Fox Valley, Saskatchewan, Joel began artistic studies in Calgary and moved to Vancouver to complete a degree at UBC School of Music (Opera). He continued for some years to tour the province and the country as a professional operatic baritone, singing roles for, among others, Vancouver Opera (touring ensemble), Edmonton Opera, and City Opera Vancouver. He continues to sing professionally as an orchestral soloist, concert artist, and occasional fabulous drag superstar. Joel has been Executive Director of Made in BC – Dance on Tour since March 2011, during which time he has continued its successful touring program and substantially expanded the scope of its community-engagement, residency and professional development programming. Joel has been a board member of the Pride in Art Society / Queer Arts Festival since 2009, and President since 2011.
ALEX LESLIE
Alex Leslie has published a collection of stories, People Who Disappear, which was shortlisted for a 2013 Lambda Award for debut LGBT fiction and a ReLit Award, and a chapbook of microfictions, 20 Objects for the New World. Their second book, a collection of prose poems entitled The things I heard about you, will be published by Nightwood this fall. Alex edited the Queer issue of Poetry Is Dead magazine, which brought together experimental approaches to Queer poetics from across Canada, and they are currently working on a book of stories entitled We All Need To Eat.
AMAL RANA
Amal Rana is a Pakistani, mixed-race femme poet/performer and an Alum of the VONA/Voices of Our Nation Writers of Colour Residency and Banff Spoken Word Program. She is proud to come from a legacy of ghazals, love and freedom fighters. In a time when even exhaling while being Muslim seems to have become a crime, she sees poetry as an act of sedition and collective resistance. Her work has been published in various anthologies and journals including Samar South Asian Magazine For Action and Reflection, When Your Voice Taste Like Home: An Anthology of Immigrant Women, Trans Genre Press’ Writing Down the Walls Anthology (forthcoming) and online on sites such as the Feminist Wire and Love Inshallah but fits best in the heart of the struggle. She is also the creator and host of Bolo Azadi (Speak Freedom), a monthly podcast featuring Queer and Trans* Indigenous Artists and Artists of Colour and is thrilled to be one of the facilitators for Frank Theatre’s Telling It Bent Drop In Writing Workshops for Queer and Trans* youth.
RACHEL ROSE
Born in Vancouver, Canada, Rachel Rose holds dual U.S. and Canadian citizenship. She grew up on Hornby Island, in Vancouver’s Chinatown on Princess Street, in Anacortes, WA, and Seattle, and has also lived in Montreal and Maebashi, Japan. Her work has appeared in various journals in both countries, including The Malahat Review, Verse, Arc, Black Warrior Review, Poetry and The Best American Poetry. Her first book, Giving My Body to Science, (McGill/Queen’s University Press) was a finalist for The Gerald Lampert Award, The Pat Lowther Award, and the Grand Prix du Livre de Montreal, and won the Quebec Writers’ Federation A.M. Klein Award. Her second book, Notes on Arrival and Departure, was published by McClelland & Stewart in 2005. She holds a BA in English from McGill University and a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Rachel is the poetry and lyric prose mentor at Simon Fraser University’s The Writers Studio.
KIM VILLAGANTE
Kimmortal aka Kim Villagante is a local multi-dimensional artist who expresses herself across many mediums including visual art, rap, poetry, song, and acting. She recently starred as “Jewel de la Reyes” in Sal Capone: The Lamentable Tragedy Of a hip hop production directed by Diane Roberts and written by Omari Newton through Urban Ink productions. As a graduate of the University of British Columbia in Visual Arts and Art History and as the Emerging Artist recipient for 2013’s Vancouver Mayor’s Arts Award in Community Engaged Arts, she has used art and hip hop to impact the world around her. Her first album featuring her original songs and raps written over the past 7 years will be released July 13. Follow her at kimmortal.com.
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