THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Cabaret - SEPTEMBER
Thursday, September 19, 2024
7:30pm (7pm doors)
Brava Theater Center’s Cabaret
2773 24th Street, San Francisco, CA 94110
$15 early bird | $20 general admission
Limited Pay-What-You-Can: $5-10
Host: Vin Seaman / LOL McFiercen
Featuring Live Performances by: Criibaby, Beast Nest, & JanpiStar
About the Event
Need to juice up on your NONBINARY energy but can’t wait until November for the THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Performance Festival? Well enbies, you’re in luck! Experience a range of queer performance mediums at THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Cabaret, featuring:
Musician Criibaby (THEYFRIEND ‘23)
Electronic musician Beast Nest (THEYFRIEND ‘22)
Dancer & Drag queen JanpiStar (THEYFRIEND ‘23)
Hosted by multidisciplinary artist Vin Seaman, aka drag queen LOL McFiercen, this will be a thrilling night of live performance uplifting, centering and celebrating nonbinary identity!
THE FUTURE IS NONBINARY! And so are we - save the dates for the next THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Cabaret happening on October 17th.
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 ADA seating for this show, please indicate so during the ticketing process. 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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Ranked in the "top 10 most memorable performances of 2023" internationally by Sofar Sounds, Criibaby is a queer singer/songwriter known for her gender-neutral "dreamy romantic jams" (BILLBOARD) “beautifully harmonized vocals and endearing lyrics” (POPSUGAR). Using a unique songwriting method she describes as possessing “no names, no genders, only the feelings, only the bare truths,” the San Francisco-born artist writes all of their lyrics from an openly queer perspective, without any binary pronouns, in a conscious effort to make music more inclusive. Perhaps more akin to “art therapy,” than simply live music, Criibaby’s live performances feature a self-made interactive light & sound sculpture. Seeing is believing, but maybe it’s best described as "a floating piano made of psychedelic glowing orbs!" (SF WEEKLY) Criibaby is fresh off the heels of unveiling their mind-blowing electronic instrument during an official artist showcase at iconic music & technology festival SXSW and regularly delights audiences with its mesmerizing beauty and curiousity-inducing originality. Be ready to be taken to an entirely new universe, because every performance begins with a meditative trip beyond the clouds.
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Sharmi Basu (they/them) is a multimedia performance artist, curator, composer, and arts organizer born and based in the unceded territories of the Chochenyo Ohlone peoples (Oakland, CA). They create expansive textural sound and performance pieces investigating resistance and organizing strategies through decolonial worldbuilding and interactive sculpture. Sharmi’s performance project, Beast Nest, transmutes experiences of trauma through complex sonic textural layering. Sharmi received their MFA from Mills College and hosts workshops internationally that center on sound, somatics, decolonization, and conflict & accountability. They have performed at SFMOMA, YBCA, SFEMF, and Ableton Loop, and have exhibited at Coaxial, Southern Exposure, SOMArts, Counterpulse, Gray Area, and Ars Electronica. Sharmi is a board member for Safer DIY Spaces, Bay Area Girls Rock Camp, and California FM. They co-founded the first-ever Bay Area Black and Brown Punk Festival, and are known in their community for curating empowering creative spaces for disabled QTBIPOC artists. The currently serve as the Executive Director of Vital Arts, based in Berkeley, California.
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JanpiStar was born and raised in Puerto Rico. Janpi with a Degree in Drama from the University of Puerto Rico had the opportunity of working with important actresses and choreographers in the island. This Star worked with the theater group "Jóvenes del 98" ( 2016 -2018) in Puerto Rico until they move to Oakland California to joined AXIS Dance Company. JanpiStar has done works with choreographers like Petra Bravo with "instalaciones Coreograficas “ Puerto Rico in 2016 , Arthur Pitta /Alice in “Californiland” 2019 , Jennifer Archibal /Petrichord 2019, and Asun Noales 2022, Janpi has been commissioned in the Bay Area by different festivals & organizations like : Queering Dance Festival on 2019, 2020 & 2022 and by The FreshMeat Production in 2021 , 2022 & 2023. In the last two year JanpiStar has develop a new way to express themselves, doing Drag shows Janpi has performed at the MOMA SF, The Academy fo Science and Oaklash 2023.
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Vin Seaman is an interdisciplinary artist, drag queen (LOL McFiercen) and the director of Diamond Wave. Drawing inspiration from sketch and stand up comedy, queer nightlife, internet aesthetics and their own nonbinary identity, Seaman’s work blends mediums and forms to create dynamic and interactive performances with the potential to shift minds and change hearts. Their work exploring queer identity and drag culture has been presented at The Stud, Brava, Oasis, El Rio, CounterPulse, the de Young, the Salesforce Tower, Frameline, the Tank NYC, the Austin International Drag Festival, SATELLITE ART SHOW Miami, the National Queer Arts Festival, Stockholm’s Stolt Scenkonst, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Yale School of the Arts.
To Attend
$15 early bird
$20 general admission
Limited pay what you can tickets
About the Festival
Now in its 4th year, THEYFRIEND is the world’s first performance festival uplifting, centering, and celebrating nonbinary identity! This year the festival will take place November 13–17 in partnership with San Francisco presenters, nightlife venues, and community organizations.
With THEYFRIEND, we’re creating a space of trust and growth for nonbinary artists to connect and present their work. Applications for performers are estimated to open in June!