DiverseWorks on Wednesdays

Koomah and Stephanie Saint Sanchez Present an Evening of Queer Voices

1. Iris and Brennan:  Iris and Brennan are practitioners of Brazilian Jiujitsu with different transmasculine identities. They will present a movement performance executed through grappling to display a vigorous mutual navigation of masculinity with versatility in the choreographed struggle.

2. Momotaro featuring Koomah:  Momotaro collaborates with Koomah to present a performance about race, culture, belief, tradition, and the act of transition.

3. Koomah as Mallé FeMallé:  In the performance Dolls, Mallé FeMallé takes the audience on a sexy, dark adventure – a burlesque unlike any you may have seen before…with a sideshow twist. Ultimately leaving the audience exhilarated, shocked, and guessing which body parts were fake (if any!) and which were real. Dolls has been featured in New Orleans Queerlesque! and the 2012 Houston Fringe Festival’s Anything Goes weekend.

4. Leenah Jimenez will be presenting her work with calligraphy and glass engraving.

5. Monica Roberts:  Writer and award-winning activist Monica Roberts will speak about her writing and blogging work as well as share some poetry.

6. define:TraNsition: Photographer Jan Johnson and poet Boston Davis Bostian discuss their new project, define:TraNsition, a collection of black and white portrait photographs blended with poetry to create a work of “poetography” illustrating everyday trans*beautiful individuals.  www.definetransition.com

Koomah is an intersex-bodied and trans-identified multidisciplinary artist in Houston, Texas. Koomah’s art is usually abstract in nature and their performance covers an eclectic range from performance art, drag, queer burlesque & cabaret, genderfucking sideshow acts, and some educational acts centering around issues of gender, sexuality, and gender variant identities/expressions.

Raised in Beaumont, corrupted in Houston, Stephanie Saint Sanchez is a by-any-means-necessary media artist, moviemaker, and instigator. As founder of La Chicana Laundry Pictures, she has made over 25 award-winning, genre-bending shorts. She also started the Senorita Cinema film festival, the only all Latina Film Festival in Texas. She is a recipient of a S.W.A.M.P. Emerging Filmmakers Fellowship, The Idea Fund, and Lawndale Artist Studio Program.

image: Koomah as Mallé FeMallé