The Fresh Meat Festival celebrates San Francisco Bay Area queer and trans artists and their deeply moving and innovative work. And now the art and performances of these stellar artists are more accessible to a wider audience now that the popular June festival has expanded to an online two-week festival. Best of all, the event is absolutely free!
Starting Thursday, June 16, and running through June 26, the annual festival, now in its 21st year, will feature five programs of live music, dance, and theatre. All programs will be streamed and open to the public June 16-19. From June 20-26, the shows can be viewed on-demand.
The Fresh Meat Festival is the only one of its kind in North America to feature edgy, exquisite, thought-provoking, and relevant art from gender-nonconforming, trans, and queer artists.
Keep scrolling to see some of the special featured ‘fresh meat’ at this year’s Fresh Meat Festival! And watch FREE ONLINE at freshmeatproductions.org
B Noel Thomas
B Noel Thomas is a performing artist, stage actor, teacher, and the award-winning choreographer for the nationally-recognized a capella group Vocal Rush. Their baritone-to-alto vocal range has allowed them to play roles that run the gamut of gender and vocals. They have appeared on American Idol, and in the Bay Area performances of many theater productions including The Toxic Avenger (Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award winner), Tinderella: The Modern Musical, Sister Act, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. @BNoelThomas
Alex “Glamputee” Locust
Alex “Glamputee” Locust is a queer, Black biracial amputee performer and disability justice activist. As a counselor, harm reductionist, pleasure activist, and runway model Locust uses his platform to center the voices of Black and brown, queer, disabled folks while weaving together the principles of the disability justice with other movements to promote access, sustainability, and wholeness in our collective liberation work.
Cindy Each
Cindy Emch has been lauded as the First Lady of Queer Country Music. The talented musician and singer who leads the Secret Emchy Society, the queer country music band from Oakland, California.
Silk Worm
Silk Worm is a transgender interdisciplinary performance artist who combines drag, theater, and dance in her work. Their work has been shown at Berkeley Art Museum, the Cantor Center for the Arts, 2727 California Street, HIT Gallery, h0L0, Fierce! Festival, the Pittsburgh Performance Art Festival, SAFEhouse for the Arts, and elsewhere.
Janpistar
JanpiStar is the queer dancer and artist born and raised in Puerto Rico where they earned a degree in the dramatics arts at the University of Puerto Rico.
Vanessa Sanchez and La Mezcla
Vanessa Sanchez founded the San Francisco-based dance and music ensemble La Mezcla in 2014. The polyrhythmic and multidisciplinary group’s work has deep roots in social justice and the traditions of Chicana, Latina, and Indigenous cultures through Tap dance, Son Jarocho, and Afro-Caribbean rhythms.
Toby MacNutt
Toby MacNutt is a queer, nonbinary-trans, and disabled multidisciplinary artist, author, and teacher. MacNutt’s art is informed by their queer identity, gender fluidity, and fluctuating/multi-modal disability. Their work often focuses themes of embodiment and relationship, asking questions such as “What is a body?”
Jocquese Whitfield (SirJoQ)
SirJoQ aka Jocquese Whitfield is dancer, teacher, and choreographer known for their expertise in Vogue. They were the first Vogue instructor in San Francisco. More recently, they added added modern, classical, and Diasporic dance themes to their freestyle hip-hop roots.
Landa Lakes (Miko Thomas)
Landa Lakes (Miko Thomas) is a Chickasaw writer, musician, activist, drag queen and artist. She founded the Two-Spirit Native American drag troupe in San Francisco, the Brush Arbor Gurlz, and the House of Glitter, and is also the Westcoast Mother of the Vogue House of Lauren, Internationa.
Tajah J
Tajah J is a Black and transgender San Francisco Bay Area-based Contemporary R&B, Soul, EDM, Pop and multi-media artist, singer, songwriter, and activist with roots in Detroit. Tajah J uses her personal experiences and past incarceration in her work with the goal of enabling trans empowerment.
Detour Dance
Detour Dance is an immersive drag theatre known for its bold performances that feature the truths of queers and POC, often in found spaces.
La Femme Bear
La Femme Bear signed her first songwriting contract at the age of 14. The singer, songwriter, producer, and multidiscipline musician was the first Black trans producer to earn a spot on Billboard’s Top 10.
