Engendered: THEYFRIEND Opening Showcase & Dialogue
Moderated by: Edgar Fabián Frías
Facilitated Discussion with Live + Video Performances
View Festival Program
November 16, 2022 (Wednesday)
6:00pm
Free! Donations encouraged
About the Event
Join the kickoff event of the 2022 THEYFRIEND Nonbinary Performance Festival with a facilitated discussion and performances featuring local and national nonbinary artists! Hosted by multidisciplinary artist Edgar Fabián Frías, the event will include live performances from musician Andy Guthrie, spoken word poet Alder Duan Hurley, and performance artist Carmina Marquez, as well as video performances from The Living Altar and Christie Blizard.
This event is made possible with support from the California Arts Council and the Hormel LGBTQIA Center at San Francisco Public Library, and is presented in partnership with Intersection for the Arts as part of the Intersect SF Series (supported with funds from Grants for the Arts).
ACCESSIBILITY: The Main Branch of the San Francisco Public Library and the Koret Auditorium are fully ADA accessible. ASL interpretation, captioning and assisted listening devices are also available. To request accommodations, call (415) 557-4557 or contact accessibility@sfpl.org at least 72 hours in advance to help ensure availability. This event will be professionally recorded with open captions and made available for public viewing in early 2023.
COVID: Masking STRONGLY encouraged, participating artists and staff are COVID tested before the event.
About the Artists
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Edgar Fabián Frías works in installation, photography, video art, sound, sculpture, printed textiles, GIFs, performance, social practice, and community organizing, among other forms. Frías is Wixárika and their family is from Mexico, though they have lived in the United States for most of their life. Born in East Los Angeles in 1983, Frías received dual BA degrees in Psychology and Studio Art from the UC, Riverside. In 2013, they received an MA in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon, with an emphasis on Interpersonal Neurobiology and Somatic Psychotherapy. Frías received their MFA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley in 2022. Their work has been exhibited internationally, including at the Vincent Price Art Museum, Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, Oregon Contemporary, MOCA Jacksonville, Performance is Alive, Project Space Festival Juárez, and ArtBo, among others.
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Andy Guthrie is an acoustician, composer, and French horn player living in San Francisco, CA. They studied Music Composition and English at the University of Iowa and Architectural Acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where they completed their Ph.D in 2014. Their music combines their knowledge of acoustics and contemporary composition/improvisation. Their electronic music has focused on exploiting the natural acoustic phenomena of unique architectural spaces through minimal processing of field recordings. Their composition has focused on the orchestration of non-musical sounds, speech in particular. Their French horn playing has focused on electronic processing and extended techniques used in improvisatory settings, as a soloist and with Fraufraulein and Delicate Sen, among others. Festivals and installations of note include: the Nature of Music Series at the Brower Center in Berkeley, Festival Cable# in Nantes, France; the Florasonic sound art installation series in Chicago; and the No Idea Festival in Austin.
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Alder Duan Hurley’s poetics centers around the difficulties and rewards of human connection. They began studying poetry during the pandemic, so poetry as asynchronous conversation became a key source of connection for them during the lockdown, when opportunities for connection were extremely limited. Though they learned to write for the page, Duan Hurley has also written pieces for specific performances. They have performed one such piece, written with the support of the GAPA Hearts & Minds program and cohort, at the Brava Theater Cabaret and at the Gunn Theater at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Duan Hurley is inspired by artists who shift culture through their work, and aspire to that themself. They are most excited about their work when it brings together their community organizing and their poetic practice.
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A. Carmina Márquez is a multimedia artist & performer based in Oakland, California. A first generation Mexican American, their work reflects a state of being in between worlds. Drawing from Nahua, Basque, and Sefardí magical traditions, as well as their vivid dream landscapes, they explore ancestral communication, gritty sensual power, and possibilities in floral masculinity. Their work speaks in a symbolic proto-language, through movement, sound, revealing hand tools and fiber as talismans and portals. They are influenced by magical realist artists such as Graciela Iturbide and Remedios Varo. They create to invent and reinvent themselves, exploring collective epigenetic possibilities for the imminent future, asking the question, "if not this, then what?" Carmina studied dance composition, vocal performance & feminist philosophy at Bennington College. They have performed at LACMA, REDCAT, the Marciano Foundation, Counterpulse, & was featured in "Sii Agua Sí," "Underground Underneath the Underground," and the Multivrs is Illuminated.
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The Living Altar is the ritual & performance art project of multimedia artists & community witches, Kiki Robinson & Ylva Mara Radziszewski. As queer and trans witches of Romani heritage; we seek to embody a faithless devotion to life in support of collective liberation through our art and ritual. We feel that the work of the Witch is to disrupt and transform the circumstances of culture, and the work of the artist is to document and synthesize the potential of these disruptions & transformations. We see the work of the witch and artist to account for, divest from, and dismantle systemic oppression from our altars, art, and magic; while tending pathways of joy, wellness and hope across all timelines within community and ourselves. We commitment to embolden the inherent magic of community through ritual performance and magical art practices.
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Christie Blizard was born in rural Indiana and lives and works in Texas. They were a participant of Skowhegan in 2018 and attended MacDowell and Artpace. Shows include those at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, School of Visual Arts, Black Mountain College, Good Morning America, the Roswell UFO Convention, and the Today show. They have been featured in Hyperallergic, ArtNews, Art in America, and NY Arts Magazine. Recent performances include those at Cloaca Projects in San Francisco, Interference Fest in Austin, TX, Marfa Myths, and an opera in Fort Worth, TX.
To Attend
This event was free to attend, but donations are encouraged! Streaming details coming soon.
About the Festival
Now in its second year, THEYFRIEND is the world’s first performance festival uplifting, centering, and celebrating nonbinary identity! With THEYFRIEND, we’re creating a space of trust and growth for nonbinary artists to connect and present their work.
