“A defiant reminder that our stories are important and part of a larger queer history… represents, for me, the best of what theatre and performance can do… I urge you to go see Squirts for yourself.”
– John-Stuart Fauquet, The Huffington Post
The Helix Queer Performance Network gathers some of the most exciting new voices from NYC’s queer performance world, accompanied each night by a legendary Guest of Honor. For the fourth year in a row, we celebrate the legacy of community theatrics, multiple generations of queer genius, and the precocious audacity of the millennial mind. Helix is a collaboration between La MaMa, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics.
Starring (every night):
BANJELA DAVIS
JORDAN MARTIN & THE SEXTONES
YAYA MCKOY
JES TOM
METTE LOULOU VON KOHL
SPECIAL GUESTS
January 15th – January 24th
Friday, January 15
Guest of Honor: KATE BORNSTEIN
Guest Squirts: MIZZ JUNE and PWR BTTM
Guest Organizer: LOURDES ASHLEY HUNTER of the TRANS WOMEN OF COLOR COLLECTIVE
Saturday, January 16
Guest of Honor: ELIZABETH “MACHA” MARRERO
Guest Squirts: AJA and TIMOTHY DUWHITE
Guest Organizer: MITCHYLL MORA of STREETWISE & SAFE
Sunday, January 17
Guest of Honor: AGOSTO MACHADO
Guest Squirts: SHAGASYIA DIAMOND and RYAN HADDAD
Guest Organizer: JENNA TORRES of the RED UMBRELLA PROJECT
Friday, January 22
Guest of Honor: HOLLY HUGHES
Guest Squirts: AUNT SHARON THE DANCE THERAPIST and CONNOR VOSS
Guest Organizer: JUANA PERALTA of the SYLVIA RIVERA LAW PROJECT
Saturday, January 23
Guest of Honor: CARMELITA TROPICANA
Guest Squirts: BXK KWAN and LADY QUESA’DILLA
Guest Organizer: KATE BARNHART of NEW ALTERNATIVES
Sunday, January 24
Guest of Honor: DANIEL ALEXANDER JONES
Guest Squirts: MIEKE D, UNA OSATO
Guest Organizer: CHRISSY ETIENNE from the AUDRE LORDE PROJECT
THE HELIX QUEER PERFORMANCE NETWORK
The Helix Queer Performance Network is a collaboration between La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics, seeking to nurture queer performers, empower queer communities, and celebrate the legacy and lineage of queer performance in New York City. Helix hosts workshops on performance, public art and critical arts writing; curates and produces innovative stage productions featuring emerging and established artists; publishes a broad range of arts journalism; and convenes public conversations that examine the lived reality of queer community-based performance culture. Helix aims to foster an inter-generational, multi-racial, multi-gender performance community where artists can build, sustain, and document a broad spectrum of queer experience in the context of a rich artistic history.www.helixqpn.org
DAN FISHBACK (Curator, Host)
Dan Fishback has been making theater and music in New York City since 2003. As director of the Helix Queer Performance Network, he organizes public events, teaches workshops, and curates various performance festivals. His musical “The Material World” was named one of the Top Ten Plays of 2012 by Time Out New York. Other works include “thirtynothing” (2011) and “You Will Experience Silence” (2009). As a singer-songwriter, Fishback has released five albums, both solo and with his band Cheese On Bread, with whom he has toured Europe and North America. He has received grants from the Franklin Furnace Fund, the Doris Duke Charitable Trust and the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists, and has been a resident artist at Kelly Writers House, the Hemispheric Institute of Performance & Politics, Dixon Place, MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center. He has also been in residence at BAX/Brooklyn Arts Exchange, in one form or another, since 2010. Find him at @dangerfishback and www.danfishback.com.
La MaMa's Squirts
La MaMa's SQUIRTS gathers some of the most exciting voices from New York City’s queer performance world, across the generations. SQUIRTS provides an experimental playground for queer and trans performance artists to produce live art with the creative and technical support of a historic Off-Broadway downtown theater. Over three nights, SQUIRTS sculpts the fabric of queer community to pose questions, honor legacies, and ignite the present.