THEYFRIEND 2024: Spoons & Spice
Thursday, November 14, 2024
SOMArts – 934 Brannan St
San Francisco, CA 94103
$20 early bird | $25 general admission
Limited Pay What You Can tickets
Hosted by Pop Rox
Featuring Ang Woon, Cassandra Myers, Harlie Holladoll, Inocente PG, JanpiStar, Navouny Divinne & Rawiyah Tariq
Can’t join in person? We are streaming Spoons & Spice live on our YouTube channel!
Join us for FREE!
About the Event
Get ready for a stellar lineup of neurospicy, disabled, and chronically ill nonbinary performers.
Spoons & Spice is an electric, eclectic explosion of celebration, catharsis, rage, and resilience. Step into SOMArts for an unfiltered glimpse into the powerful and deeply personal experiences of living as a neurospicy, disabled, and/or chronically ill nonbinary human.
Hosted by Pop Rox, expect unflinching, intimate performances from:
✨ Ang Woon
✨ Cassandra Myers
✨ Harlie Holladoll
✨ Inocente PG
✨ JanpiStar
✨ Navouny Divinne (PDX)
✨ Rawiyah Tariq (2024 THEYFRIEND Advisor)
Spoons & Spice isn’t just a show—it’s a reminder that joy, rage, and survival can coexist in the same body and collectively on the same stage. Don't miss out!
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SOMArts Cultural Center is wheelchair accessible with multiple ADA accessible all-gender restrooms. ASL Interpretation will be provided for this event and all videos will have open captions. Host will announce content/trigger warnings before videos and performances.
Additionally, we will provide earplugs, a quiet and low-light decompression space, and an active listener for emotional needs (in collaboration with Queer LifeSpace).
This is a no/low scent event, so please refrain from wearing scents to this event. Attendees not in compliance with this requirement may be asked to sit in a specifically designated area or to leave the event without a refund.
To access a map of existing blue accessible parking zones in San Francisco, please visit: https://www.sfmta.com/maps/existing-blue-accessible-parking-zones
If you have questions or would like to contact someone to ensure we can meet your accessibility needs, please email sarah@diamond-wave.org.
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Masking REQUIRED. Participating artists and staff are COVID tested before the event. KN95 provided at the door.
About the Artists
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Pop Rox is a rocking, candy coated, weirdo by night and an immigration attorney by day. Pops is a white, nonbinary and genderqueer, disabled and neurodivergent drag thing, born and raised in the Bay Area. Pops has performed with the Monster Show, Rollin’ with the Homos, and Palace of Trash, and they opened for Chappell Roan’s November 2023 show in Berkeley. In their “trashion” practice, they create large-scale wearable art from found, thrifted, and recycled materials. You can find Pop Rox coordinating fundraisers with Legalize Drag, a collective of drag artist legal professionals who fundraise for queer liberation nationwide.
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Ang Woon is best known for their horror-themed poetry, and lesser known for acrobatic contortion, comedic poetry, and trans-themed self-compassion poetry. Ang is a nonbinary Chinese-American mindset coach, whose heart-mission is to help LGBT+ individuals build self-compassion, process buried emotions, and do things they once thought impossible. As a human, Ang's biggest intention is to work towards equity, safety, and peace for marginalized individuals. Through their poetry and movement, Ang's hope is to reach marginalized individuals-- especially LGBT+ people of color-- to impart hope and self-compassion.
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Cassandra Myers (My’z) (they/she/he) is an award winning poet, performer, dancer, illustrator, and counselor from Tkaronto, Ontario. As a queer, non-binary, South-Asian-Italian, crip, mad, survivor of sexual violence, Cassandra's work is cinematic and juicy with it's critical anti-oppressive eye. Cassandra’s work has won national literary and spoken word titles including the National Magazine GOLD Award in Poetry and Champion of the Canadian Festival of Spoken Word. Their work has been internationally received at the Ada Lovelace Festival in Berlin, and elsewhere. Find their poetry in ARC Poetry Magazine, Canthius, the Tahoma Literary Review, and more.
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Harlie Holladoll is the berserk beauty with the bodacious booty! Born and bred in the San Francisco Bay Area, Harlie stumbled onto the scene in 2016, armed with nothing but unapologetic charm, curves, and a devotion to deviance! Since then, they have aroused and annoyed audiences across the country from the San Francisco Bay Area to Atlanta, GA. Harlie’s performances are a wild blend of sass, clownish charm, and unapologetic fat celebration. They’re a familiar face at Big Queer Events, and Harlie is honored to be included in the the cast of Spoons and Spice at THEYFRIEND.
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Inocente PG is a Mexican (Chican@), transgender (agender) mixed media visual artist, multi instrumentalist musician, composer, beat maker, poet, and performer who was born and raised in East Oakland, Ca. Inocente uses art and music on a daily basis as coping mechanisms to help manage mental illnesses, to document current events that get looked over, and to survive getting temporarily gentrified out of the Bay Area.
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JanpiStar was born and raised in Puerto Rico, with a Degree from the University of Puerto Rico had the opportunity of working with recognized artist in the island. JanpiStar has done works with choreographers like Petra Bravo 2016, Arthur Pitta, Jennifer Archibal 2019, Asun Noales 2022, and participated at the Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival 2023. Janpi has been commissioned in the Bay Area by different organizations like : Queering Dance Festival & The FreshMeat Production. Recently JanpiStar has developed a new way to express themselves, doing Drag presentations. Janpi has performed at the MOMA SF, Oasis SF, The Academy Science and Oaklash .
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Navouny Divinne is the Mixed Trans Shapeshifter of the West Coast. Also know as the enitity of 1000 faces. She gives a wide variety of drag artistry, you will be delighted by and surprised with every performance.
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Rawiyah Tariq is a gender non-binary multi disciplined artist and kink aware professional with roots in queer, poly-amorous, fat community. Their tone is reflective of these roots and their work is informed by how these intersect with their Blackness. Magic, massage, storytelling and performance art are tools they use to liberate, heal and reclaim space for marginalized communities. Rawiyah Tariq has danced on stages throughout the country with the award winning and internationally traveled troupe Rubenesque Burlesque as Magnoliah Black from 2009 to 2015. As a solo performer their work (often performed on mainstream stages) continues to reflect body liberation, visibility and self possession. They are the 2022 recipient of Queer Cat Production’s Artist Grant and as of 2023 have been asked to join the company as a member and their Disability Justice Lead. Rawiyah is also one of Diamond Wave Arts’ Theyfriend 2022 featured artists.
To Attend
$20 early bird
$25 general admission
Limited Pay What You Can tickets
About the Festival
Now in its fourth year, THEYFRIEND is the world’s first performance festival uplifting, centering, and celebrating nonbinary identity!
This event is supported by the Borealis Philanthropy, the California Arts Council, and the Zellerbach Family Foundation, and is presented in partnership with SOMArts Cultural Center and the Leather & LGBTQ Cultural District. Diamond Wave is a fiscally sponsored project of Intersection for the Arts that is supported by Grants for the Arts, the Horizons Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation.