THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Performance Festival
Virtual Video Showcase
Thursday, November 16, 2023
5:30–8pm PST
Live Streaming on YouTube
Sliding scale $5 - $25
Host: Goddexx
DJ Sand.dreams
Guided Altar Building with The Living Altar
Video from Castle Laws of Pleeay, DeVery Bess, Frankie Fingerling, Given Q. Davis, Isis + Kyarai Dara, mirrored fatality, Riy Mutakabbir, Saira Barbaric, Srujanika Das, & TAYLORALXNDR
About the Event
Grab some snacks, gather your enby friends and family, and tune into our 2nd annual THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Virtual Video Showcase – from anywhere in the world!
The evening will begin with a special guided altar building with The Living Altar (Portland & New Orleans) at 5 pm. If you want to get a jump start on your altar, check out their Guide to Altar Building zine to prepare your own altar at home.
Then at 7 pm, our magical hostexx Goddexx (Seattle) will guide you through a multidimensional showcase featuring works from Castle Laws of Pleeay, DeVery Bess (Toronto), Frankie Fingerling (Edmonton), Given Q. Davis (Portland), Isis + Kyarai Dara, mirrored fatality, Riy Mutakabbir, Saira Barbaric (Seattle), Srujanika Das (Kolkata, India) and TAYLORALXNDR (Atlanta). Featuring beats and music by DJ Sand.reams (Chicago), you won’t want to miss this expansive collection of video art and short films from nonbinary artists across the nation and world!
ACCESSIBILITY: Auto-generated captions provided, with open captions on all videos.
This event is made possible with support from the California Arts Council and the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, and is presented in partnership with the San Francisco Transgender Film Festival. 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)
Sand.dreams has had the pleasure of playing/performing at some amazing locations in Chicago such as Berlin, pride fest, cafe mustache, the hideout, smartbar, LNF. They are a resident online dj host at Beloved online radio, has been co-featured in Paper Mag and starred in many music videos and photoshoots, has had 2 songs aired on the radio, (online) and is a recurring dj for the “black gallery” that is held annually.
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(they/them)
Performing has always been a crucial skill for me to process the intensity of existing in this physical world. I began with ballet at age 3. I fell in love with the relationship between movement and music. After dancing professionally, I needed to focus on my mental health. Grief, addiction, and emotional dysregulation forced me to slow down. I was eventually diagnosed with autism, and discovered my various identities regarding gender and sexuality. During this transformative time, I started making music. My band's name is PLEEAY - which is an aggressive misspelling of the French word meaning "to bend, to fold" - reflecting the nuance and flexibility required to navigate daily life. Recently, PLEEAY has released an album, played at Oaklash 2023, and traveled to Southern California to evangelize our gospel of fierce authenticity. To summarize, I make art to live loudly with compassion while inviting others to join.
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(they/them)
Rather than being held as a monolith of experience DeVery Bess (He/Him/They/Them), producer, Comedian, Disk Jockey, and Drag Artist is exploring mediocrity as a form of resistance to cishet and racist ideas of exceptionalism. To exist in the space of white supremacist colonial ideas of “best” is exhausting and requires unrealistic amounts of work. Being “the best” or DeVery Bess, isn’t necessarily the best. Mediocrity leaves room for joy, is full of potential and allows for new and exciting things to happen. To gain comfort in mediocrity is adjustment in service of exhibiting the multiplicity of artistry, drag, being. Mediocrity leaves space for viewers to also see themselves, or acknowledge their own discomfort with mediocrity and by extension possible failure.
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(they/them)
Frankie Fingerling (they/them) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in amiskwaciwâskahikan, colonially known as Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. No matter the medium, their art helps them process their own lived experiences and trauma, as a non-binary Chinese person navigating life in a predominantly white, conservative province. They are inspired by their late grandfather who was an oil paint artist in Hong Kong and the Philippines, and QTBIPOC art from around the world. By trade, Frankie is a researcher and curriculum developer, which informs their current artistic practice in burlesque and drag and lifelong journey of learning and growth.
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(he/they)
Given Davis (they/he) 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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Isis (they/them)
Isis is a multidisciplinary and multidimensional artist that was born and raised in Los Angeles. Their art attempts to blur the line between conscious and subconscious to illuminate the generational cycles that are deep within their psyche and the collective conscious as well. Isis crosses dimensions in their work to bring forth emotional healing in the fourth dimension forward as a tangible reality in the third. Their film has been debuted at the Closing Reception for Understory Black And Indigenous Queer and Trans Art Showcase Summer 2023 on June 30, 2023.
Kyarai Dara ()
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mirrored fatality is an underground interdependent Kapampangan and South Asian xenotr@nsbinary experimental noise punk farmer duo combining performance art, music, spoken word, film, photography, sculpture, upcycled garments, anti-imperialist education, and healing justice practice spaces to mobilize a warrior community responding to transnational calls-to-action for mutual aid, land sovereignty, and prison abolition.
They have toured across Turtle Island (United States of America), Europe, United Kingdom, Mexico, and Thailand. As farmers and artists, mirrored fatality has completed residencies with Buttermilk Falls Residency, Postcrypt Gallery, EFA Project Space, Dead Bedland, Earthlodge Center for Transformation West and South, Star Route Farm, Esalen Institute, Isis Oasis Sanctuary, AADK Spain, Calafou, Baesianz x hatezine at SET Woolwich, University of the Underground, Tour de Moon, Nelly Ben Hayoun Studios, The Uhuru Dreamhouse New Orleans, Fancyland, Habitable Spaces, and Prattsville Art Center and Residency.
They have taught lectures, workshops, and thesis presentations with University of California Los Angeles, University of California Berkeley, California State University of Long Beach, University of Arizona, University of California Riverside, University of Kansas, University of Illinois, University of Texas at Austin, New York University, and Columbia University.
In 2022, mirrored fatality released a remastered version of their COCOON WEBS EP with Aklasan Records, their film VALE on Get Better Records, and their film EARTHBODY(S)_BIOME(TRICS) on Tour de Moon, Nowness Asia, and they screened at the London Short Film Fest 2023 at the British Film Institute and Rich Mix London. mirrored fatality released their singles “REINCARNAGE”, “VALE”, “BIOME(TRICS)”, and “PRIMALDIAL MAGMA” on their EP ECOCIDE 3URTH with Cherub Dream Records.
In 2023, they will release their debut 12-track album on Getter Better Records and Psychic Eye Record and are in post-production of their short film “PRIMAL_DIAL_MAGMA_ZYG_MUT_TROPH_OOZE.” They will perform their multidisciplinary ECOCIDE 3URTH biome as Outsider Art Finland Festival’s artists-in-residence during their Summer Europe 2023 tour. In Fall 2023, they will be completing an artist residency with Konvent Puntzero Residency Barcelona.
As Boss Witch Productions Commission for 2023-2024 mirrored fatality will curate a live biohacking and transmutation installation performance where mirrored fatality’s techno-bodies activate as a multispecies of animals, biomimetic terratoids, and transhumans in their immersive biome LABUAD MEKLOOQ. This performance mobilizes Glitch TransFeminist lore as calls-to-action against transphobia, settler colonialism, climate catastrophe, and surveillance capitalism. mirrored fatality experiments with decolonial regeneration as their voice and movement triggers a live Kapampangan and Urdu experimental noise score, projected multi-channel motion capture systems, 3D animation, and interactive mixed reality video art. As Outsider Fest 2023-2025 artists-in-residence, they will perform a multimedia ritual theater installation performance at Outsider Fest 2025 in Austin, Texas.
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(they/them)
Riyadah “Riy” Mutakabbir is an educator aiming to create thought-provoking work. They first started their dance career at Stockton School of the Performing Arts and eventually transferred to Unique Visions Dance Company under the direction of Chelsea Hill. At 17 years old, they were admitted into UCLA’s Dance major where they were exposed to many different world dances and cultures. This exposure led them to a creative internship at Lula Washington Dance Theatre. During their undergraduate career, they were a member of the hip hop group, NSU Modern, and co-founded a group called Taste The Rainbow that celebrated resistance in a world that too often denies queer people’s existence. It is Riy’s mission to provide dance spaces to people of all genders, races to create a more inclusive dance community.
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(they/he/she/ze)
Saira Barbaric is a multidisciplinary, gender-blending hedonist creature in a thicc Black disabled human suit. Based in Seattle since 2015, Saira creates performance, films, events and visual art that explore folklore, sex, Afro-Psychedelic dreams and glitches as expressionism. Saira’s work has shown in theaters, bars, parks and galleries all around North America and Europe.
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(she/they)
Srujanika Das is an up and coming artist based out of Kolkata, India, who raps about sexuality, spirituality and Indo-futurism.
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(they/she)
TAYLOR ALXNDR is an Atlanta-based musician, drag performer, multi-media artist, and community organizer. As a musician, ALXNDR released their debut EP, NOISE, in 2017, followed by HOLOGRAM, in November of 2018. It was listed as one of the top 10 albums from Atlanta artists. They just released their new EP 1993 on March 11th 2022.
ALXNDR is the co-founder and current executive director of Southern Fried Queer Pride (SFQP), a queer + trans, arts + advocacy organization centering Southern queer communities. They are also the mother of the House of ALXNDR, an Atlanta-based drag family and events hub, creating drag-centered, inclusive events.
To Attend
Sliding Scale $5–$25
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.