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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (May 17, 2002)
THEATER Talkin' bout a revolution PORTLAND GAY Intercourse will (further) shake up your assumptions about sex and gender by MEN’S CHORUS V o ic e s o f P ride W e d n e s d a y , J u n e 1 2 , 2 0 0 2 @ 7 : 3 0 p .m . Kaul A uditorium , Reed C ollege 3rd Annual Rainbow Ball F r id a y , J u n e 1 4 , 2 0 0 2 9 p . m . — 2 a .m . C rystal Ballroom D w n tw n PDX T h e O fficial k ic k off to th e 7 0 s a n d 8 0 ‘s R e t r o D i s c o I n f e r n o ' Online w w w .pdxgm C .orq ark your calendars! Portland activist Emi Koyama is putting together Inter- course : A Sex and Gender Spoken Word Recipe for Revolution May 25 at Holly wood Theatre. If everything we read is true, we’ll be treated to a “dynamic evening of performance, connec tion and celebration of intersex, genderqueer, sex worker and trans communities.. .designed to raise awareness about our lives and realities and to build communities for ourselves and our allies through spoken-word performances.” “ Badass Jew dyke” Nomy Lamm talks back Twelve artists will perform, including at Intercourse Olympia’s Nomy Lamm, a self-proclaimed would have something tangible to take home. “badass, fatass, Jew, dyke, amputee, performance Koyama helped out at the San Francisco artist, writer and activist.” Her work has been function and is, without sponsorship, organiz published widely in magazines and anthologies, including Ms., Seventeen, Listen Up: Voices from ing this one with any proceeds split between the Intersex Society of North America and the the Next Feminist Generation and Body Outlaws: Survivor Project, a Portland nonprofit dedicat Young Women Write About Body Image and Identity. ed to addressing issues faced by intersex and Lamm co-wrote The Transfused, a full- trans survivors of domestic and sexual violence. length, post-apocalyptic rock opera, with Port Koyama, who was ISNA’s activist-in-residence land band the Need, and she recently toured last summer, describes herself as (in addition to with the production Doctor Frockrocket’s Vivify' other things) “a multi-issue, social justice, slut, ing (Re'Animatronic) Menagerie and Medicine synthesizing, feminist, Asian, survivor, dyke, Show. She was named one of Ms. magazine’s queer, sex worker, intersex, genderqueer crip.” 1997 “Women of the Year,” and in 2000 she That’s a mouthful, but it illustrates Koya- was one of Out magazine’s “Out 100.” ma’s (and Intercourse’s) emphasis on crossing Qwo-Li Driskill is also on the Intercourse line up; s/he is the founder and director of Knitborie categorical boundaries. “The performers I asked are the people I respect the most both as Productions, an ensemble of First Nations People of the Americas and Hawai’i, who use writing, activists and as artists.. .who are actively theater and story as tools for healing, continu involved in...many other issues such as envi ronmental justice, gentrification, fat oppres ance and decolonization. A director, writer and actor as well as a poet and activist, Driskill’s work sion, Native sovereignty, sexual and domestic violence and so on. As a result, I feel we have a has appeared in numerous Native, queer, people of color and scholarly publications. pretty good mix of people who come from very diverse backgrounds and experiences.” On the home front, Portland performers Leslie and Stacey Bull turn up their raw, per Koyama expects the event to sell out and sonal, political prose. Other locals appearing hopes the audience walks away “excited about include Lamya “Amir” el-Chidiac, Diana our communities. I want Intercourse to he an Courvant and Koyama. opportunity to make connections.. .between different movements., .and to celebrate the strength we have in an Fraijcisco poetry slam champion and alliances. I want them tp realize that expressive art is intersex activist Thea Hillman, who, along with not just a leisure for the few but a survival and coping Solidad di Costa, coordi nated the first Intercourse skill for all of us who live last year as part of the complicated lives.” National Queer Arts Festi If that’s not enough to get val in San Francisco, is on you through the door, one the slate as well. She and lucky person will walk away di Costa attended the Cre with an autographed tie of ating Change conference Leslie Feinberg as a raffle in 2000 with the Intersex prize. And consider Koyama’s Society of North America. audience estimation: “500 of “We both committed to the cutest and coolest queers, helping raise awareness trannies, sex workers, herms, about intersex issues,” Hill genderqueers and friends from man states. “As performers, all over the Northwest!” we thought the best way...was to produce a I ntercourse : A S ex and show with intersex artists G ender S poken W ord in it. The more we organ R ecipe for R evolution ized, the more we realized starts 7 p.m. May 25 at Hol that we wanted to really lywood Theatre, 4122 N .E . shake things up with a big Sandy Blvd. Tickets are $10' event and that we wanted $50 sliding scale at the door or lots of perspectives from $8 in advance from In Other ntercourse organizer and performer sex and gender rebels.” Words, Hollywood Theatre, Emi Koyama Hillman explains that Miss Mona s Rack or in order to “harness the excitement and infor www.eminism .org/intercourse. No one will be mation of the evening,” they made a whole turned away for lack of funds. event out of the performances, including booths of community organizations, so the audience HADLEY S cott is a Portland free'lance writer. M S jn Pride N o rth w e s t W e e k e n d ! To P u r c h a s e T i c k e t s C o n t a c t H adley S co tt PGMC
