Prance!

I'm very excited about DJ-ing at Prance tonight! I haven't DJ'ed since leaving Vancouver for Geneva last Spring and I'm so thrilled to be part of this event. I'm copying and pasting the info about this dance party from the Prance blog, so you can read all about it:

Copied from the Prance blog

Why Art

2010 January 20

by pranceprancerevolution

General Idea, from the Imagevirus series

So why is Prance doing an art-themed party? Because we want to celebrate the contribution of queer artists in our community, both now and in the past. Queer artists are activists and community-builders, and they have had a huge impact on the way contemporary art has developed. We think more queers should know about it!

The (nonprofit) art world is the only place where queer people get funding make queer culture on our own terms, to represent ourselves in the way that we want to be represented, and to take the means of production of images into our own hands. This has resulted in some amazing work. One that we want to highlight is the collective General Idea.

General Idea (from whom we stole the poodle image we used to promote this party) was SO VERY important in raising consciousness around the AIDS crisis in Canada. 2 of the 3 members of General Idea died of AIDS-related illnesses. They not only worked on bringing awareness of these issues to a Canadian audience, they also represented Canada in international venues. But many queers don’t know about them today.

The art world is a field where queer people are recognized by straight colleagues as important innovators, rather than also-rans. A queer person can make photos of queer sex (kinky and poly), tour them around the world, and get a job BECAUSE of that, rather than IN SPITE of that. Like Susan Stewart of Kiss & Tell.

Cuts to BC arts funding (cut by 90%!!!) are going to harm the production of queer culture in BC, and the livelihood of a disproportionately-queer group of people. The art that is axed first will be the low-budget, community-driven, activist and dirty queer art, and the spaces which show that sort of thing. The excuse that has driven the cuts is that art is elitist, and things like hockey and the Olympics are not. But how are free (queer and political) events more elitist than events which cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars to attend (and are often homophobic)?

So what can you do? Write a letter to the province. Support the wonderful Spencer Herbert, who is a strong voice for arts & culture & queers. Go out to arts events, many of which are free and rely on attendance numbers for funding. AND OF COURSE make art and show it to people!

At Prance we will have performances by:

Francisco-Fernando Granados (bio below)
Kate Lamothe (bio below)
Emilio Rojas (bio below)
Heidi Nagtegaal
Sam Rudolph
and more!

Here are some artists we think are awesome, a mix of international and Canadian, right now and historical. Check it out:

Lesbian National Parks & Services
Kiss & Tell
General Idea (here’s another site)
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Terence Koh (wikipedia) (his site)
Ryan Trecartin (wikipedia) (youtube)
Kalup Linzy (wikipedia) (videos)
Devil Bunny in Bondage
2fik
ACT-UP & Keith Haring (wikipedia) (essay on AIDS activism)
Geurilla Girls (wikipedia) (their site)
Claude Cahun
Tom of Finland

and locals:

Bobbi Kozinuk
Kai Ling Xue

Performers at the upcoming Prance:

Francisco-Fernando Granados is a Guatemalan-born, Vancouver-based artist and writer currently working in Performance, sculptural intervention and cultural criticism. Through his practice, he aims to create ephemeral spaces where larger socio-political contexts can collude and co-exist with personal narratives.

Kate Lamothe is a Vancouver based, transsexual performance artist and writer. When she’s not pissing off the gaygeousie or getting naked on stage she can be found making mix tapes, getting tattooed, DJing, writing trans erotica, and just generally fucking shit up!

Emilio Rojas was born in Mexico City in 1988. He is a multimedia and performance artist whose works explore the relation between the artist and his audience, interacting and exchanging roles. The intrinsic relation with the body has been both his subject matter and medium. Exploring the mental and physical limits of his being, Emilio revaluates standards of beauty, activism, gender, and sexuality. He is currently living in Vancouver, B.C., and enrolled at Emily Carr University.