LOCATION
The Chan National Queer Arts Center
ADMISSION
Pay What You Can
RSVP and purchase tickets here
On April 18th, the GLBT Historical Society will host the third Memory Keepers Initiative program with the San Francisco Gay Mens’ Chorus - a vital evening uplifting the authentic, first-person narratives of LGBTQ artists from the Bay Area. This evening will feature elders, activists and trailblazers through a curated discussion and storytelling, ensuring our often distorted or erased queer histories are preserved in their own powerful voices for generations to come. Tickets are now available. This is a Pay What You Can event, ensuring everyone can attend.
This event marks the third of four interactive panels designed to bridge generations within our community. Memory Keepers Initiative brings our cherished queer elders into conversation with today's LGBTQ community and allies, fostering a dialogue that spans activism, art, community, politics, and beyond. After years of pioneering efforts in LGBTQ rights, it's time to honor our heroes and ensure their invaluable stories are shared and celebrated for generations to come.
Speakers
Seth Eisen (he/him) is a Bay Area-based artist, writer, director, producer, archivist, and educator who engages LGBTQ history as a living, breathing dialogue by researching lost legacies and blurring the edge between art, research and activism. For 30 years Eisen has staged performance pieces, street spectacles and installations and has curated and appeared in numerous collaborative projects created with other Bay Area artists and beyond. He is the founding Artistic Director of Eye Zen Presents, a theater and art company that unearths and elevates LGBTQ+ histories so that we can better understand our lineages and ourselves. Eye Zen’s work creates a lasting body of evidence reclaiming our existence, our resilience and our practices of radical joy and community care.
Eye Zen’s recent multi-year project OUT of Site, is a series of performance-driven queer history tours. Spanning 175 years of Bay Area of LGBTQ and QTBIPOC history one neighborhood at a time, OUT of Site makes the connections between the people and the sites where histories took place, bringing them to life in immersive, educational, and entertaining events around San Francisco.
Jewelle Gomez (Cabo Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway; she/her) is a novelist, poet, essayist and playwright. Her ten books include five collections of poetry and the first Black Lesbian vampire novel, THE GILDA STORIES. In print for more than 30 years, a new UK edition was launched by Vintage/Random House in 2023. The novel was recently optioned by Cheryl Dunye (“Lovecraft Country”) for a TV mini-series. Her latest collection of poetry, Still Water, is from BLF Press. Her work has appeared in numerous anthologies including: “Red Indian Road West,” “Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora,” “Oxford Treasury of Love Stories,” “Luminescent Threads: Connections to Octavia Butler,” and “Stories for Chip: A Tribute to Samuel R. Delany.”
She was the recipient of an NEA Fellowship, a California Arts Council Artist’s Residency and recently a Bram Stoker Legacy Award from the Horror Writers of America. Gomez was playwright in residence (2011-2023) at New Conservatory Theatre Center (San Francisco) which commissioned and produced her last three plays- “Waiting for Giovanni” about author/activist James Baldwin; “Leaving the Blues” about singer/composer Alberta Hunter, and currently “Unpacking in P’town” about her grandmother and a group of her retired vaudevillian friends is running at NCTC. Gomez also worked in philanthropy for thirty years including at the NY State Council on the Arts, the San Francisco Arts Commission, the Astraea Lesbian Foundation and Horizons Foundation. Connect with her on TWITTER & Instagram: @VampyreVamp.
Scrumbly Koledwyn (he/him) Born Richard Koldewyn, Scrumbly got his unshakable nickname performing as a founding member of The Cockettes, singing, writing music and attempting to organize the herd of cats they were in all their fertile creative anarchy. He went on forming several other post-Cockettes groups; culminating in The Distractions, and composing and music directing in Under and above-ground theater, over 100 productions at present, including Berkeley Rep, New Conservatory Theatre, Thrillpeddlers (Including 5 Cockettes’ shows’ revivals). His vocal trio, The Jesters, toured Europe 3 times. Currently he teaches at Stagebridge in Oakland, encouraging seniors to sing outrageously; and with producer Dan Karkoska, puts together and performs reviews of his songs with the troupe, ‘Cockettes Nouveau’, most recently at Joe’s Pub in New York City.
Additional speakers TBA
Location
The Chan National Queer Arts Center, 170 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94103
Admission
Admission is pay what you can. Tickets are available here.
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