THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Performance Festival
Closing Showcase
Saturday, November 18, 2023
7pm (6:30 doors)
Brava Theater Center’s Cabaret
2773 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
$20 early bird | $25 general admission
Limited pay what you can tickets
Host: Vin Seaman & Poppy J. Snacks
DJ: Initial Rhi
Live Performances by Humble Hart, Kanyon CoyoteWoman, karinyo, Rafi Ruffino Darrow, Rowan Katz
Video from Given Q. Davis & mirrored fatality
About the Event
Close out Transgender Visibility Week in style with our final show of the 2023 THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Performance Festival! Co-hosted by stand up comedian Poppy J. Snack (NYC) and Diamond Wave Director Vin Seaman, the evening will feature performances from hip hop lyricist Humble Hart, musicians karinyo and Rowan Katz, and multidisciplinary artists Kanyon CoyoteWoman and Rafi Ruffino Darrow, as well as video from poet and songwriter Given Q. Davis (Portland) and the multidisciplinary, experimental noise punk farmer duo mirrored fatality. Initial Rhi will be our DJ for the evening, so come early and stay late to dance with nonbinary community and celebrate the end of THEYFRIEND 2023!
ACCESSIBILITY: Brava is wheelchair accessible with ADA-accessible all-gender restrooms. The space also includes an upstairs mezzanine with additional seating that is only accessible by stairs. All videos will have open captions.
If you need ASL interpretation or ADA accessible seating for this show, please indicate so during the ticketing process no later than November 10th. For any questions about accessibility please email kiana@diamond-wave.org.
COVID: Masking REQUIRED, KN95 masks available at door. Participating artists and staff are COVID tested before the event.
This event is made possible with support from the California Arts Council and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, and is presented in partnership with Brava! for Women in the Arts. Diamond Wave is a fiscally sponsored project of Intersection for the Arts that is supported by Grants for the Arts, the Horizons Foundation, the Walter & Elise Haas Fund and the San Francisco Arts Commission.
About the Artists
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(they/them)
They say laughter is contagious, and Poppy J Snacks is the living proof of that! They've taken on life's absurdities with such gusto that even the absurdities themselves are considering therapy. Their humor is a rollercoaster ride through the uncharted territories of human experience, guaranteed to make you laugh, squirm, and even reevaluate your outlook on life. Poppy hosts comedy shows around NYC including a monthly show at The Stonewall Inn! Follow Poppy on IG and TikTok (@poppyjsnacks) on this laughter-filled journey, and prepare to be amused and inspired as they continue to take the comedy world by storm!
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(they/them)
Vin Seaman is an interdisciplinary artist and the director of Diamond Wave. They have been featured on Shondaland and Vice.com, were an inaugural APAP Leadership Fellow, and received the 2017 Americans for the Arts Emerging Leader Award, the 2019 Theatre Bay Area Legacy Award, and a 2022 CALI Catalyst Award. Their creative work exploring queer identity and drag culture has been presented at The Stud, Brava, Oasis, CounterPulse, the de Young, Frameline, the Austin International Drag Festival, SATELLITE ART SHOW Miami, the National Queer Arts Festival, Stolt Scenkonst, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Yale School of the Arts.
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(they/she/siya)
DJ/Producer Initial Rhi is also known as filmmaker Rhi Bergado who has directed content for music artists like Lizzo, Gwen Stefani, Yubin (Wonder Girls), CL (2NE1), Karol G, and Troye Sivan. Initial Rhi began their career as a DJ in the early 2000’s at various Pride Festivals and club nights. Today, Rhi specializes in performing at anime raves, festivals, and pop culture gatherings and tours the country throughout the year. Known for a fun and uncanny open format, they reference anime, video games, pop culture nostalgia, multi-lingual beats, and believes in the dance floor as a community space.
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(she/they)
Humble Hart is a Black and Puerto Rican Non-binary Queer person from East Palo Alto Ca. They specialize in Hip Hop & R&B Lyricism as well as Spoken word poetry. They have performed all over the Bay Area and across the country as well. Their most notable performances were at the Silicon Valley Pride Parade ‘22 as well as the Transmarch Concert in SF this year.
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(they/elle/siya)
karinyo is a Bay Area/Seattle based singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and sound healer. karinyo’s work explores grief, mental illness, and liberation. Their live performances feature live looping, multiple instruments, and piercing vocals. karinyo has received grants/fellowships at Crybaby Studios (Seattle), Seattle Asian American Film Festival and Jack Straw Recording Studio. They have designed sound for projects that have been featured at Three Dollar Bill Cinema, Pan Eros Film Festival, Velocity Dance Center, On the Boards, and more. In 2020, karinyo self-produced and released their debut EP. karinyo has offered bilingual vocal healing sessions since 2019.
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(they/them)
Rafi Ruffino Darrow is a transdisciplinary artist working on Ohlone land in so-called Oakland. Raised in Buffalo, NY, their work is rooted in the pervasive illness that has shaped their hometown, and how this troubles the boundaries of the human body/unsure contours of our global futures. Their work lives in the liminality this precarity creates, and the inter-marginalized care it necessitates. They’ve studied with Stopgap Dance on a Fulbright scholarship, and presented at Dartmouth and SAFEhouse for the Arts. They’ll soon undertake a fellowship at Hambidge Arts. Currently, they’re co-writing a piece in Feral Feminisms on disabled femme excess.
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(they/them)
Rowan Katz is a vocalist, emcee, poet, songwriter, and physical theater artist hailing from Los Angeles and currently residing in the bay. Their work often concerns themes of gender expression and identity, trauma healing, queerness, Jewish diaspora, recovery, anarchism, grief, and mysticism. Touted as a powerhouse vocalist and performer, Rowan uses art as a way to dismantle shame and foster expression, intimacy, and connection. Recent credits include "Songs of Truth" with the Golden Gate Symphony (soloist), Free Key Choir (soloist, composer, section leader), HBO's "Scavengers Reign" (Vocalist), and Noise Pop's "Summer of Music" series.
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(they/he)
Given Davis is a magical Black neuroqueer nonbinary trans masculine multidisciplinary artist. Their creative practice dances the lines between poetry, performance art, clowning, drag, musical composition, and healing arts. They have performed in Dapperlesque, Drunk Herstory, and Melange (the longest running queer, trans BIPOC drag and burlesque monthly show). Given is also a co-creator and co-host of queer/trans variety public access television show “Magic Night at the Trans Bar with Max & Mars & Given & Urks & Friends!”
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mirrored fatality remembers wholeness from dismembered flesh and mutates as cross pollinating perennial terratoids. mirrored fatality intertwines glitch rage webs with corroded resonance and regenerates forsaken spores across their current biome: ECOCIDE 3URTH.
To Attend
$20 early bird
$25 general admission
Limited pay what you can tickets
About the Festival
Now in its third year, THEYFRIEND is the world’s first performance festival uplifting, centering, and celebrating nonbinary identity! This year we are hosting five events November 14–18 in partnership with San Francisco presenters, nightlife venues, and community organizations.
Curated by festival advisors Rawiyah Tariq, transcriptions01, the Living Altar, and Diamond Wave Director Vin Seaman, the 2023 THEYFRIEND festival features the work of 40 local, national, and international nonbinary performers!
With THEYFRIEND, we’re creating a space of trust and growth for nonbinary artists to connect and present their work.
