Artists & Contributors 2011

ALISON SMITH

Alison Smith is a poet who performs her work in British Sign Language. She is noted for her forthrightness – what you see is what you get. Alison's work has featured in publications with commissions for proudWORD and English Heritage. She was part of b)other collective's exhibition at GOMA in 2009, and has performed and led workshops in Germany, USA and UK. She has also featured at Edinburgh's Cachín Cachán Cachunga Queer & Trans Cabaret.

Alison is the founder of Pesky People, a campaign to challenge digital discrimination faced by Deaf and Disabled people. Pesky People plays on the term "pesky", getting small and large organisations to sort out access issues with considerable success. Go Genie is one of its online entities that helps online users easily find access information. http://www.peskypeople.co.uk/

AMITY

Wolverhampton born Amy Forrester, a self taught singer-songwriter who takes 'going it alone' to an exciting new level.

Combining vocals with guitar, throwing in a kick and snare, looping it all together and playing whatever else is lying around to create honest music that makes you want to laugh, cry and tap your toes.


AMY LAME

Born and raised in America, New Jersey, Amy is an accomplished writer, entertainer, comedienne and presenter.
 
She is a regular contributor to a whole host of programmes including: The Wright Stuff, This Morning, Channel 5 News, BBC London News, Daily Politics, Richard and Judy, BBC Breakfast News, BBC Good Food and Liquid News.

Amy is the co-founder, promoter, and hostess of Duckie, London’s premiere pop and performance nightclub, every Saturday at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern. Duckie won an Olivier Award 2004 for Best Entertainment for their show, C’est Barbican.

Her one-woman show, Amy Lamé's Mama Cass Family Singers wowed audiences at the Edinburgh Festival and met with rave reviews at London’s Soho Theatre.

Amy was also a contestant in the Alternative Miss World, 1995 and 1998.

MRS BARBARA NICE

Barbara Nice is the comedy alter ego of Janice Connolly . Janice is probably best known for her role as the God fearing barmaid "Holy Mary " in Peter Kays Phoenix Nights .
Other Tv appearances include two roles in Coronation street -most recently in Kabin with Norris !

Janice is also the artistic Director of Birmingham based"  Women and Theatre " which recently faced the "Dragons Den " and won  the Birmingham and Solihull "Big Ideas Bonanza " for their community comedy club initiative with communities creating their own comedy club . 

Janice is also a freelance actress having recently played Helen -the Dora bryan role in "A taste of Honey " at The new Vic Theatre Stoke  to great critical acclaim . October sees her recreating her Edinburgh festival much lauded role as Cath the Cleaner as part of the brilliant "Office Party " produced by Nick Perrin  and with a three month run the show looks to be London`s must see show for the Autumn/Christmas season .

b)other

A Spot of b)other: LGBTI Queer, Trans and Intersex Deaf and Disabled Cultures
Sandra Alland with Stuart Crawford, Nathan Gale, Robert Gale, Y Josephine, Jennie Kermode, Rebeca Pla, Alison Smith, Penny Stenhouse and Kristiane Taylor
b)other collective formed in Glasgow in July 2009. They have exhibited their work individually and collectively throughout the UK, Europe and Canada.
Bother, as in “bother to care”, as in “why bother”, as in “we’ll cause bother until we’re treated as equals”. Other, as in that “Other” box many of us have to check, when that option even exists. b)other, as in we are othered, but also choose to Be Other, to celebrate our differences instead of trying to fit definitions of normal.

CAT CHINN

Highly talented as a singer and guitarist, Cat Chinn has already been performing her own acoustic songs for the last 10 years.  With a distinctive voice that unusually melds strength with sensitivity, her performances draw you in to really listen to what she has to sing. The 25 year olds present style has evolved from a more alternative acoustic approach to upbeat melodic rock performances that are enhanced by her development as an artist over a decade of live performances. In that time she has worked with musicians of flair and experience from England and Europe, and excitingly she has brought some of them together in a band for her forthcoming debut album.

DAVID HOYLE

David is an artist/human being who has dedicated his life to art and expression since time immemorial, enduring a protracted career that has included stage, television, and film, documentary you name it. David will sink his remaining nicotine stained teeth into any medium. A vampire's kiss coupled with the soft caress of a moth's wing.

Flamboyant, colourful occasionally acerbic David fuses the DNA of both the raven and the peacock. Strutting, extemporising, juggling with many issues be they banal or contentious David will satisfy your senses on so many different levels.
David has endured an international career that has taken him around the globe. Recently he has performed in Copenhagen, Zagreb, Holland, France and Singapore and also Newcastle. David embraces controversy as easily as he embraces the avant guard.

‘Genius’ - Cabaret performer 2010 – Time Out London
‘Hoyle's shows are car-crash, rage-fuelled, issue-based comedy’. - The Times

Born in Blackpool, Hoyle came to prominence in the 1990s as the Divine David, a kind of anti-drag queen whose lacerating social commentary – targeting both bourgeois Britain and the materialistic-hedonistic gay scene, which he called "the biggest suicide cult in history" – was offset by breathtaking instances of self-recrimination and even self-harm. Following a couple of outré late-night Channel 4 shows and a cameo in Velvet Goldmine, Hoyle killed the Divine David off during a spectacular show at the Streatham Ice Arena in 2000 and retreated to Manchester for "a period of reflection".

He returned to TV screens in 2005 in Chris Morris's Nathan Barley, then began performing live again, under his own name. This time round, the chances of serious injury in any given show seemed greatly reduced, but Hoyle's biting satire, bravura costumes, wicked comic timing and compelling charisma remained intact. As well as the Royal Vauxhall Tavern (RVT), with which he is most closely associated, he's performed at the Soho Theatre, Chelsea Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, National Portrait Gallery and Victoria & Albert Museum. Hoyle is back, all right.

EEEK

Hailing from the Midlands all female band, Eeek, breathe a freshness into the female acoustic music scene.  With mellifluous, soulful vocals and a widely inspired, articulate and influential guitar and drum accompaniment, the combination has led them to extensive local/national success and interest.
Eeek are: Lucy Burton, Lead vocals; Danielle Wilson, Vocals; Mandy Burton, Guitar and Karen Milne, Drums.

HANNAH PHILLIPS

Hannah Phillips is currently the Course Director of the BA Community & Applied Theatre / Dance Theatre courses at Birmingham School of Acting / Birmingham City University. Previous positions include, Director of Young People's Theatre at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Artistic Director of Birmingham Library Theatre Company and Pink Space Theatre Company and Associate Director of Y Touring Theatre Company in London. Hannah has worked as a freelance theatre maker accross The West and East Midlands and London. Hannah's areas of specialism are Young People's Theatre, theatre making and Feminist and Queer Theatre. Recent directing / theatre making credits include, the stage premiere of Ostrich Boys, the award winning novel by Keith Gray, adapted for stage and the Birmingham Repertory Theatre Young REP Company by Carl Miller performed, at The Old REP Theatre. Heterophobia commissioned for SHOUT 2010, performed at mac Birmingham and The Drill Hall, London. The Fear of Queer, a SHOUT festival 2009 commission and Fast & Furious or Soft & Slow? which toured Birmingham, London and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Hannah is also the performance Co -ordinator for SHOUT festival.

'In a piece like this, which managed to infuse many different styles and techniques, credit must be given to writer and director Hannah Phillips who managed to create a diverse and entertaining piece which blended a variety of styles.'  Heterophobia, The Drill Hall 2010 - artsHub, London

ISMA ALMAS

Isma arrived in the UK with her parents from Pakistan in 1978. Twenty six years later she delighted them by choosing the sinful and degrading profession of stand up comedy. And it’s a decision that is already proving fruitful for one of the most talked about acts on the UK circuit.

Since performing in November 2005, Isma’s rise has been spectacular. She won the First Laugh competition at the Sheffield Comedy Festival in 2006, as well as being a semi-finalist in the unfair and biased So You Think You’re Funny contest. She has been a finalist in the Funny Women and Hackney New Act of the Year Competitions. 

She had a successful run at the Edinburgh Festival with her debut show ‘Isma Almas Bombs’.

Isma dispels myths about Muslim women whilst creating twice as many. Drawing on her council estate roots in Bradford, Isma’s comedy is intelligent, warm, acidic, challenging, accessible, happy, vicious, frank, charming and honest. Every type of audience from sociology professors to lads on a stag night, warm to her instantly and are expertly taken on a comedy white knuckle ride.

JANIS IAN

Janis’s songs have inspired audiences for over three decades, from her 1967 debut, to classics such as Between The Lines and albums up to Folk Is The New Black and Best of Janis Ian – The Autobiography Collection. Her songs have been recorded and performed by a list of artists including Nina Simone, Dusty Springfield, Joan Baez and Roberta Flack. Enjoy this concert from an absorbing performer.
www.janisian.com

JET MOON

Femme, faggot, film-maker, writer, performer, political activist and pervert.

Jet Moon is an artist/activist producing politically engaged creative work that combines performance, writing, and film. Creating events, works and collaborations that push for change, re-evaluation and empowerment in our gendered/sexual and cultural lives. Strongly influenced by  involvement with the alter-globalist movement, Jet has developed style of working that captures the fragmented nature of a precarious lifestyle; the practice of moving across borders, whether geographic, cultural, sexual, gendered, visible or invisible.

Over the last 20 years Jets work has manifested in many different forms and contexts, from fine art exhibitions to organising and participating in street demonstrations. I believe in our right to live freely and the necessity to actively transform our society in order to do so.

Jet is also a founder member of Queer Beograd collective travelling regularly to work in Serbia and maintaining strong links in Beograd as part of the collectives activities.

JOEY HATELEY

Joey Hateley is the Artistic Director of TransAction who performs at a variety of events across the world, devising socio-political interdisciplinary performance in collaboration with a diverse range of organizations. Joey is a theatre practitioner, writer, director, educator and art-activist who has performed and worked with trans adults and vulnerable young people in Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Ecuador, India, Namibia, Peru, Quito, South Africa, Sweden, Thailand, USA and the UK. Joey is a trans-feminist experimental theatre artist, who creates innovative transformative cross-cultural performance work that focuses on issues of identity, diversity, inclusion and empowerment. Joey runs a wide variety of projects for theatres, conferences, cultural events, training for organizations, specific interest groups, artists, actors and university students. Joey has worked with Ron Athey, Rikki Beadle Blair, Franko B, Jonzi D, Vaginal Davies, David Holye, Holestar, Julie MacNamara, Stacy Makishi, Scottee, Peggy Shaw, Ryan Styles, Diane Torr and Del LaGrace Volcano to name but a few.  www.TransActionTheatre.Co.uk

JOSEPH MERCIER

Joseph Mercier is a dancer and choreographer that makes shows about sexuality, gay history and alternative subcultures. His solo show, Giselle, or I’m Too Horny to be a Prince, has toured to queer festivals in Oslo, Liverpool, Belfast and Dublin, wooing the crowds with a daring and moving performance. The show also went to Barbican Theatre Plymouth and Dance City in Newcastle, and will be performed at the Chelsea Theatre as part of Sacred on the 24th of November 2011.

Known as the leader of the Pride London Flash Dance in Trafalgar Square in 2010 and 2011 – where he has lead 15000 people in one giant dance, Joseph is also present in the cabaret scene, where he has performed with David Hoyle on several occasions.

Joseph has performed in several kink/fetish shows: Hard On, Expectation’s Deep, The Infamous Cock (NewYork), a number of other clubs/events with Ashley Ryder. He has appeared in Michael Lucas’s film ‘Passion’ in a scene with Raphael Alencar.

He has recently been commissioned by SM Gays to create a show for their 30th anniversary, which was performed the 30th of July at the Hoist.

MANDY ROMERO

is a transgender artist, a created identity but not a conventional alter ego. The artist has produced films, writing and has performed in plays and cabaret but her main performance focus is on Live Art actions and interactions, which she has carried out in places as diverse as Barcelona, Shanghai, Copenhagen and the Pearl River Delta.

She is based in Liverpool and has had a long association with the Bluecoat Arts Centre there, producing many of her art-works for them including her most recent performance work, Stevenage”.

She took on the mantle of Queen Of Culture for the Liverpool ’08 Capital Of Culture celebrations. www.mandygirl.net

MAUREEN YOUNGER

Maureen works as a stand up comedian and compere all around the UK and abroad and was a finalist for the prestigious Hackney Empire New Act of the Year Competition. She is the resident MC for Laughing Cows in London, Birmingham and Berlin and also comperes for well-established clubs such as Downstairs at the Kings Head, ED Comedy and the BBC Comedy Club, Happy Thursdays.

Gigs have included performing at the Barbican alongside Arthur Smith, at Manchester Pride and performing at Choice FM’s Comedy Night. In May 2010 Maureen was the compere for Crying with Laughter which featured among others Jo Brand, Jenny Éclair, Hattie Hayridge and Lucy Porter and was critics’ choice in Time Out.

In 2008 Maureen was one of the warm up acts for the Puppetry of the Penis tour; and in 2009 supported Shazia Mirza for part of the tour of her one woman show as well as being the support act in 2010 for Kojo at his recent one-man show at the Soho Theatre.  Maureen also gigs abroad and has appeared several times in Berlin performing in both English and German.

Maureen also works as a contributor on BBC Radio and regularly appears on the Andy Crane Show for BBC Radio Manchester as well as being a weekly guest of the breakfast show for www.gaydio.co.uk.  She has also reviewed the newspapers for Sky News.  In addition, Maureen has performed warm up in English & Spanish and English & French as part of a prize winning radio drama season, The Works. She also presented her own weekly radio show, Mo's Soul Show, on Break FM.

MYRA DUBOIS

Myra DuBois is Rotherham's finest entertainment export since Paul Shane. An actress, a cabaret artiste, DJ and a barmaid, she brings a professionalism to her work only a background in Amateur Dramatics can.
 
"Acid tongued, funny to the bone" - Timeout London
"One of the most exciting faces in Cabaret." - Whatsonstage
 
www.myradubois.co..uk

PENNY STENHOUSE

Penny is a Glasgow based artist who is always working on ways to get more jewellery into your life. It’s very serious business. Penny also creates bizarre happenings at art galleries across the UK at b)other collective openings and other events. Her project, “I Am One of Them”, draws (humourous) attention to the othering of people from backgrounds perceived as different and inferior.

Description: Are you one of them? Do you ever worry that you may be one of them? or maybe you know and support someone who is one of them? If so, wear your support* with pride with our original awareness merchandise available from our representative.

* Not suitable for those who are ‘one of those’.

PAOLA CAVALLIN

Paola Cavallin is an extablished peformer and writer. She has toured nationally in the UK and internationally and her work has been published in 'Scatti di Teatro Lesbico' an Anthology of Modern Italian Lesbian Theatre writing. She also the author of 'Nespole, Nurzie e Camionare.Il lesbismo a Bologna negli anni '70 e '80' an historical research of the gay life in Bologna . Her directorial work in UK includes a Comedia dell'Arte musical 'Scaramouche. The Zany musical' and a modern Commedia show 'Modern Times'.

ROBERT TAYLOR

Robert is perhaps best known for his portraiture, with work held at the National Portrait Gallery, The Victoria and Albert Museum, and several private collections. His work has been exhibited and published widely both here and overseas.

His skills in stylishly and provocatively celebrating the diversity of human beings and their bodies were much in demand in the 1980s and 1990s for anti-HIV/AIDS health education campaigns. Perhaps the most notable example was Peter Tatchell’s ground-breaking sex education book for gay men, SAFER SEXY, which was a major success both here and in the USA.

For over 20 years he has explored a range of issues including bereavement, rehabilitation in UK prisons, sustainable development in Ghana, and the achievements of women in science and technology. He continues to create people-based projects in collaboration with artists in other media, and a wide variety of clients and campaigns.

ROSIE WILBY

Rosie Wilby is an award winning comedian and former musician who has headlined gigs at Sydney Mardi Gras and appeared on E4, Carlton TV, Radio 4, 5, BBC London and LBC. Her brand new solo show Rosie's Pop Diary received rave four and five star reviews at Edinburgh Fringe. She presents and produces Resonance FM's LGBT show and is a regular correspondent on Gaydio. Her spoof LGBT news podcast Odd Ones Out can be found on iTunes and she co-starred in and co-wrote short film The Bride And Bride at this year's London Lesbian And Gay Film Festival at the BFI.

RACHEL ADAMS

Rachel Adams is a documentary and portrait photographer who has been working with sub-cultures throughout the UK to capture otherwise unseen aspects of British culture. She is particularly interested in documenting style, performance and cultural practice that remains neglected by the mainstream media - placing personal stories at the heart of her practice.

Skilled in getting even the most reluctant subject to relax in front of the lens Adams' editorial work features regularly in national press and review publications. She is commissioned on a regular basis and has exhibited extensively, most recently with Sale Waterside Arts Centre, Manchester District Music Archive and at Manchester Pride with Curated Place and the original Modern Lesbian project.

RYAN STYLES

Ryan Styles studied Jewellery design at Middlesex University and went on to train in clown at Ecole Philippe Gaulier, Paris. His work is theatrical, highly stylised, physical, and works within the genres of live art, drag and mime.

Ryan has performed all over the world in theatres, museums, Working Men's Clubs, gay bars and supermarkets. He has presented at The Guggenheim Museum NYC, Royal Festival Hall, V&A Museum, Space Ibiza, The Whoopee Club, Tower Ballroom Blackpool, Ascot, Westfield Shopping Centre! and many many more...

www.ryanstyles.com

SANDRA ALLAND

Sandra Alland is a writer, performer and visual artist. Her work has been presented at Entzaubert Queer Film Festival 2010 and 2011 (Berlin), Contact Photography Festival (Canada), Equality Network’s Everybody IN LGBT BME Project (Edinburgh), GFest 2010 (London), Kairos In Soho and Glasgow Gallery of Modern Art. Sandra has been artist-in-residence at Banff Centre (Canada), FONCA (Mexico), GoMA and Trongate 103 (Glasgow). http://www.blissfultimes.ca

SAYAN KENT

Sayan has been working in professional theatre for quite a long time. Recent writing includes, Antigone’s Sister (Birmingham Rep, Young Rep); The Contract (The Old Joint Stock, Birmingham, Joint winner of the Capital New Writing Festival); Invisible (Part one, staged reading at Midlands Arts Centre); Another Paradise (Kali Theatre national tour and Edinburgh), shortlisted for the John Whiting Award. Killing Wasps (Soho Theatre, staged reading); musical adaptations of Silas Marner (Belgrade, Coventry) The Good Companions (New Vic, Stoke), three pantos and a short radio play.

She has composed a wide range of music for theatre which incudes, Ostrich Boys (Birmingham Young Rep) Rock Face (Changing Spaces) Two (Liverpool Royal Court) Spangleguts (London Bubble) Another Paradise, Zameen, Paper Thin, Sock'em with Honey, Calcutta Kosher (Kali Theatre), Chaos, Bells, (Birmingham Rep) Hound of the Baskervilles (Paul Farrah Prods.), The Phantom Sausage (Wolsey, Ipswich), The Turn of the Screw, Silas Marner, Limestone Cowboy, Cinderella, Mother Goose, Dick Whittington, Aladdin (Coventry Belgrade), Truckers (Harrogate), A Hard Rain (Northampton), The Good Companions, Country (New Vic Stoke), Dinosaur Dreams (Unicorn), Hot Doris the Musical (Oval  House) Factory Follies (Croydon Warehouse), 72 Days and Bloody Elektra (Oval House and Albany Empire).

As an actor she worked extensively with the following theatre companies: Belgrade (Coventry), Mercury (Colchester), Swan (Worcester), New Vic (Stoke) Royal (Northampton), Adelphi (London), Kali, Half Moon, Asian Theatre Co-op, Croydon Warehouse, Theatre Centre, Oval House, Albany Empire, NT Studio. As a TV/Film actor work includes: Casualty (BBC), Doctors (BBC), Coronation Street (Granada), EastEnders (BBC), Young Soul Rebels (BFI Film), The Paradise Club (BBC), The Bill (Thames), Moveable Feasts (BBC), Zara’s Story (Arts Exchange), The Big Battalions (Carnival/C4). Directing includes Calyx (King's Head), many staged readings and dramaturgical work with writers (Watermans and Soho) and assistant director on Dead Eye (Birmingham Rep) Good Golly Miss Molly (Arts). Also taught acting at the Dolphin Dance Academy.

She trained at Rose Bruford, is a graduate of the MPhil Playwriting course at Birmingham University, and is currently creating work for Kali Theatre Company, Liverpool Royal Court, and BBC radio drama.

SCOTTEE

Scottee has broken limbs, been questioned by Police and lost 100's of pairs of high heels in his determination to please and challenge his audience. His brash, clumsy and obnoxious approach to performance has left them confused, annoyed & amused. Whatever you think of Scottee - he probably won't care.
http://scottee.co.uk


SOPHIA BLACKWELL

Sophia Blackwell is a performance poet, cabaret vamp, burlesque wannabe, feminist lesbian warrior princess and Italian pasta-momma. Born in Newcastle, polished at Oxford and living in North London, she’s been on the poetry scene for five years after winning her first slam and getting her first paycheque - which was immediately spent on petrol and a curry.

An eclectic word-flinger, Sophia does quiet love poems, scary blazing rants against oppression and hypocrisy, and meditative rambles about dancing shoes, tomatoes, reality TV and killing your potted herbs - the stuff of life. She owns a lot of red dresses.

From mid-November 2008 to mid-January 2009, Sophia's portrait was exhibited as part of the 'Headspace,' exhibition at the Saison Poetry Library in the South Bank Centre. At Glastonbury in 2009 she read two winning poems from a spoken word competition run by Speak 2B Free and also hosted the open mic session as well as performing.

STE MCCABE

Ste McCabe is a queer-electro-punk singer who conjours up a quirky and sarcastic blend that is sure to delight, energise and politicise his audience . In the last 5 years Ste has released 2 critically acclaimed albums on Cherryade Records, toured all over Europe and has been praised by everyone from Huw Stephens on Radio 1 and Artrocker Magazine to human rights campaigners and 80's cult pop stars. Not for the easily offended or faint of heart!

“Ste McCabe is a queer-feminist-punk-poet for the people" - Time Out London

“Manchester’s queen of queer punk” - Manchester Evening News

“Ste is armed with a mean, lean, bedroom Disco drum machine, a cheap guitar and his biggest asset; a mind and a loud mouth to speak it.” - Gay Times

TOM MURPHY

Tom Murphy is a new young sculptural and performance artist based in the West Midlands of the UK. Creating a broad range of evocative pieces, Tom's work is typically dramatic, theatrical and always exciting. Dealing with a variety of themes including life, death and immortality, greed, power and wealth, glamour, romance and legend, Hollywood and Americana. Tom's work uses an often humorous and tongue-in-cheek language to explore more serious and philosophical issues.

Inspired by a range of sources including literature, film, music, history and current affairs, and heavily influenced by writers and poets from the Classics to more contemporary figures such as Ballard, Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tom creates bold 3D compositions which act as melting pots of philosophy, Art History and Popular culture.

Ranging from elaborate towering sculptures to epic performances using hundreds of participants, Tom’s pieces are always on a monumental scale, and demonstrate a talent not just as an artist but as a showman. Regularly featured in the local press, radio and television, no undertaking is too large or too ambitious, and his performance piece The Umbrella Dance in particular was world record breaking.
Creating work which is often biographical or narrative, Tom enjoys this idea of telling a story through the artwork. Stories with unlimited possibilities usually existing in a fantastical world or alternative reality, they are left open for contemplation and interpretation.

Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Sylvia Plath and even Michael Jackson are muses for a practice steeped in the folklore and mythology of Hollywood, these tragic Icons tie into ideas of mortality and deification in a modern world. These are the fairy tales of the digital age.


V.G.LEE

V.G. Lee is the author of the novels The Comedienne, The Woman in Beige, Diary of a Provincial Lesbian and a collection of short stories, As You Step Outside. Her latest novel, Always You, Edina, will be published early next year and she is also an acclaimed stand-up comedian. Her stories are featured in the new anthologies ‘Boys and Girls,’ and ‘Men and Women.’ Born in Birmingham, she’s very glad to be back for a night.

ZORRAS

Scottish-Canadian writer and artist, Sandra Alland, and Belgian-Venezuelan musician, Y. Josephine, formed the multimedia performance troupe, Zorras, in Edinburgh in 2007. In 2009, they were joined by Argentine photographer and filmmaker, Ariadna Battich.

Zorras have become internationally known for their uniquely queer and bilingual mixture of text, sound poetry, percussion, singing, guitar, electric bass, megaphones and projected images. They inject passion (and a good dollop of humour) into both personal stories and cutting observations of our troubling times.

Zorras host Edinburgh’s only multimedia, multicultural queer and trans cabaret, Cachín Cachán Cachunga! Previous gigs include: Entzaubert Queer Film Festival (Berlin), AB Series (Ottawa, Canada), Grey Borders (Saint Catharines, Canada), Toronto New School of Writing (Canada), Pivot (Montreal, Canada), Soho Theatre, Bar Wotever, GFest 2010 and 2009 (Cochrane Theatre), Write Queer London (Museum of London), Jawdance (Apples & Snakes), Edinburgh Festival, Edinburgh Book Festival, Edinburgh Queer Mutiny, Aye Write! Festival (Glasgow) and Scratch (The Arches, Glasgow). Zorras will also appear at Homotopia on 5 November.

Speakers 2011

CHARLOTTE ROSS

Charlotte Ross is a lecturer in Italian Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Birmingham. Her research explores issues of feminism, gender, sexuality and embodiment in 20th century and contemporary culture. Contact c.e.ross@bham.ac.uk

HENRY ROGERS

Senior Lecturer in Fine Art at Birmingham City University and project organiser

He is the Director of the Arts Based Masters Programme at Birmingham City University and responsible for the development of MA Queer Studies in Arts and Culture, the first free standing named award in Queer Studies at Masters level in the UK. Queer Theory is implicit in his practice and he is interested in the conceptualization of queering as a methodology. He is also interested in the performed nature of the production of artworks, their representation and performative circulation within culture.

Publications include:

Making a Scene: Performing culture into politics (ARTicle Press: 2000)
Art Becomes You!: Parody, Pastiche and the Politics of Art (ARTicle Press: 2006)
The Art of Queering Art: (ARTicle Press: 2007)

MICHELE AARON

Senior Lecturer in American and Canadian Studies at Birmingham University
She has a continuing interest in theories of gender and sexuality, especially as they interact with the construction of Jewishness and race more broadly. She have published and presented a series of pieces on the intersection of queerness and Jewishness. Grounded in the discourses of race and gender of late nineteenth century Europe, these explore Hollywood, European and Yiddish film and history, and more recently television.

Publications include:

Spectatorship: The Power of Looking On (Wallflower; 2007)
The Body’s Perilous Pleasures (Edinburgh University Press, 1999)
New Queer Cinema: A Critical Reader (Edinburgh University Press, 2004)

Professor FABIO CLETO

teaches English Literature at the University of Bergamo in Italy
He is interested in fictional mass culture and the politics of representation and his research within the field of queer studies is typified by his work on ‘Camp’ in which he provides a challenging rethink of camp, and a historical/theoretical framework for research on the subject. In this he explores the multi-layered issue of camp, whose inexhaustible breadth of reference and theoretical relevance to the issues taken up by academic research in recent years have made it one of the most salient and challenging issues on the contemporary critical stage.

Publications include:

Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999)

JOSE ARROYO

Lecturer, Department of Film & Television Studies, Warwick University
José Arroyo is currently researching the effect of changing mediascapes on traditional questions in film aesthetics. His ongoing interests include issues of national and sexual representation, Spanish cinema and contemporary Hollywood cinema. He is currently writing on Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem, and his next project is on ‘Impact’ Aesthetics. He is a regular reviewer for Sight and Sound.
Publications include:

‘Queering the Folklore: Genre and Re-presentation of Homosexual and National identities in Las cosas del querer’ in Bill Marshall and Robynn Stilwell eds. Musicals: Hollywood and Beyond Bristol: Intellect Books, 2000.

'Death, Desire and Identity: The Political Unconscious of "New Queer Cinema", in Joseph Bristow and Angelia R. Wilson (eds.) Activating Theory: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Politics xi 266pp, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1993.

'La ley del deseo: a gay seduction' in Richard Dyer and Ginette Vincendeau (eds.) Popular European Cinema, London: Routledge, 1992.