Tranzfabulous QUeer Open Mic

MAY 27th the heat is on!

Come to a tranzfabulous edition of QUEER OPEN MIC featuring ryka aoki de la cruz, surprise performances by members of Trans/Giving and yvonne o2 etaghene on the only San Francisco stop of her womanifesting dangerous freedoms poetry tour.


When:

May 27th, 2005
8pm

Where:
Three Dollar Bill Cafe
1800 Market@Octavia


How:
$1-$5 donation – no one turned away for lack of funds

Details:
Queer Open Mic was created to foster a conversation among a community of queer, radical and feminist poets and performers within a multi gender, multi generational and multi cultural framework. Without venues like the Bearded Lady Truckstop Café, and in a post Sister Spit San Francisco, Queer Open Mic intends to create a space, along with venues like Femina Potens, where folks can come together without the cost or pressure of a bar setting to share art and create community.


This week features a tranzfabulous collection of performances on the open mic from Los Angeles troupe Trans/Giving led by the stunning feature ryka aoki de la cruz and Nigerian Poetess yvonne o2 etaghene from New York on the San Francisco stop of her womanifesting dangerous freedoms poetry tour as the second feature of the night.


FULL BIOS OF PERFORMERS BELOW.

Why an open mic on a Friday night? Because the queers will not be silenced, because sharing art is a revolutionary act, because coming together to kick some serious literary ass and genderfucking through art is unbelievably fun, because your voice and your experience is unique and needs to be heard, for these reasons and more come on over to a friendly and fabulous open mic for the entire queer community! Let's create a space for spoken word, poetry and performance that is multi cultural, multi gendered, completely inclusive and dynamic.

sign up 7:30, show @ 8pm
at the Three Dollar Bill Cafe
1800 Market @ Octavia


May 27th

ryka aoki de la cruz: FULL BIO



ryka aoki de la cruz is a trans goth dyke who has been published most recently in Beyond the Valley of Contemporary Poets, Girlchick.com, Grand Street, FEM Magazine, the Southern Poetry Review, Lodestar Quarterly, and Tsur. ryka has work in the forthcoming anthology Poetry is Not a Luxury: Poems by L.A. Women of Color. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Cornell University, is a founder of Cornell University's Asian American Playhouse, and head coach of Cornell's Ivy League Judo Championship Team. She is the recipient of a University Award from the Academy of American Poets.

ryka has worked with the American Society of Hiroshima-Nagasaki A-Bomb Survivors, and two of her compositions have been adopted by the group as its official "Songs of Peace." She has featured at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Poetry Festival, Scripps College, ForWord Girls and Intercourse -- A Sex and Gender Recipe for Revolution, in San Francisco, Cliterati in Atlanta, and Gen Estro in Minneapolis.



Trans/Giving FULL BIO

Trans/Giving is a celebration of trans/genderqueer/intersex artists and believes that the strongest statement artists can make is simply through our art. From jazz musicians to Shakespearean actors, slam poets to porn stars—when performers show our poetry, our wit, our music, our images...we become luminous... and maybe people will think twice before wanting to stamp us out.



yvonne o2 etaghene FULL BIO

a fierce femme Nigerian warrior based in her mother’s womb, yvonne o2 etaghene is also known as I AM MY MOTHER’S DAUGHTER. she performs poetry passionately, loudly, boldly, with force and tenderness with the express purpose of actively participating in the spiritual, mental and political liberation of oppressed peoples worldwide. unleashing uncensored verses, yvonne uses her poetry to chisel a verbal sculpture of her soul for listeners; her words are flames flickering over her tongue and her breath is graffiti flung against cement walls of apathy, demanding a revolution that starts within.



a womanifestation of the inextricable interconnectedness between the personal and political, she composes poems that are scissors tearing misconceptions to shreds, spitting fire that heals instead of burns, she is an avid advocate for compassion, loves mangoes, dancing and laughter. each syllable she utters is an exercise of ecstasy to grab up hold of you and remind you of why you live.



womanifesting dangerous freedoms tour

womanifesto: thru out this tour yvonne o2 etaghene will use her words to chisel a verbal sculpture of her soul, while speaking about race, class, gender, sexuality, women’s empowerment, war, imperialism, materialism, love, self esteem & family. from city to city, pieces she performs will vary in subject matter depending on the needs of the venue or organization but no matter the space her voice will scream & whisper uncomfortable truths and familiar wisdoms, weaving verses that detail the delicacy and resilience of our collective humanities. spitti lullabies to soothe and anthems to motivate, yvonne is on a mission to plug her art into ongoing social justice movements thru out the country and world to lend her voice towards the progression of those movements. yvonne womanifests freedoms that are dangerous to the status quo/and encourages the world at large to do so also.



past performances/publications/recordings:

a performance poet, essayist, playwright and actress, yvonne produced two one-woman shows in 2004—one in Washington Square Park dedicated to Sakia Gunn, (a young Black lesbian murdered because of her sexuality), and another at Brooklyn’s Studio 111 rooftop space that discussed her nationality, race, gender and sexual identities. she has also performed at Bluestockings Bookstore and Café, Bowery Poetry Club, BRIC Studio, the Nuyorican Poets’ Café, Bar 13, S.O.B.s, WOW Café, as part of the QueerHere Theatre Festival, at PeaceOUT East: the Annual International LGBT Hip Hop Festival as well as on the campuses of Columbia University, New York University, Oberlin College, Ohio State University, Queens College, Sarah Lawrence College and Yale University. yvonne is a self-published poet of two chapbooks, recently released her first spoken word CD with musical accompaniment and has a full length book of poetry due out in spring 2005.